Thread: Feed the poor?

Originally Posted by garza

Helping poor people to eat only encourages them. We can eliminate poverty by making it a capital crime.

Britain had the right idea. Just shove all the poor people in prisons and then there will be no poverty. Then, we'll convert prisoners into Soylent Green to feed everyone else.

I'd like to point out, there's generally little movement between the classes. Lower income class people generally raise lower income people, middle class raise middle class, upper class raise upper class people. It's mentality, basically, those invisible scripts that everyone follows.

Originally Posted by spider8

The birth rate may be dropping in developed countries but the population is still booming. It's a huge problem for the human race.

In ten years the UK population is estimated to increase by several million, yet we don't (and I think we're not alone) have the money to increase and improve our society's infrastucture (schools, hospitals, roads, prisons, supermarkets etc) by the equivalent percentage.

I think most of the population boom is occurring in China and India, with the added problem that people there want a middle class lifestyle, with electricity and running water.

Rustgold - Unfortunately the story of many former British colonies has been dismal and the future appears bleak. That means there is much that needs to be done to pull these countries into the mainstream of world history. However, anything that is done must be done with the primary goal of improving the lives of the people.

Dudester and Ditch - If either of you can figure out a foolproof way of separating the cheats from those who need and deserve help, you will be a hero to everyone. Except to the cheats, of course. If the cheats could be eliminated, the truly needy could get a raise at the same time the taxpayers could save money.

If you go back to the OP -- you can see the thread isn't about cheats. It's about all the poor people on welfare who are all dining on gourmet meals of steak and lobster, all at our expense. Of course the solution is -- they just need to all go out and get jobs, because as we've now learned, there are plenty to be had. They just don't want them. It's just that simple.

Yep, "the poor" just have the wrong attitude. But with a kick up the backside and some morale boosted into them by "the workers", they'd be right out there working hard along with the rest of them.

If you’re in an urban area, where most of the poor are located, there are no landscaping or fast food jobs -- and even outside the city, those jobs are hard to come by these days. You can see day laborers at the Home Depot or wherever left behind after crews come by to pick up whatever workers they need, because construction is way down. And people who have lost good jobs in the midst of good careers are taking fast food jobs these days. And besides, if the jobs don’t pay as well as welfare, there isn’t much incentive to look for work.

Anyway, those who are from successive generations of people on welfare rarely spontaneously decide that it’s a good idea to go get a job. In many cases, public assistance is all they know. The schools where they live are usually awful, they’re surrounded by criminal activity, which often looks like a good option, there’s no daycare or training opportunities.

There’s an underclass in this country with a self-perpetuating culture and way of life – teen pregnancies, absentee fathers, drug abuse. Government programs have largely failed and made things worse in most cases. The bootstrap thing is largely a myth. You hear of success stories, and people hold those up as examples, but there’s usually a common element, somewhere along the line there was a mentor or decent role model -- and those are hard to come by in some environments. I don’t have the answer -- but it’s not as simple as just saying, “hey, get a job.”

Absolutely. And I think thats where the "get a job" types fall down. They see everything in simple terms and believe it's easy to get up out of the hole because of those one or two examples. But the real world is so much more complex than that.

It's not about "the poor" or "the rich" or any other term dreamt up as a convenient label. It's about real people out there in the real world who are individuals and not statistics.

My father died when I was 12, we got $48.00 per month of SS as long as I was in school. I quit school at 17 to get a job as a welder. Later when I was in my 20's I remember everyone saying "There isn't any work, I can't find a job." Jimmy Carter was in office and interest rates were double digit, the oil embargo was under way.

At that time I was a night dispatcher for a trucking company, pretty easy, answer the phone and send the next truck in line that could handle the load, they trained me in about 1 hour. I could sleep as long as I answered the phone.

When I got off, I went to the post office and picked up bulk mail for IBM and a large uniform company and delivered it. I had time to go home, shower and have coffee with my wife and see my kids for a few minutes then went to work as a fitter welder at Tiger Diesel. When I got off I went back to the two places and picked up the evening mail, threw it on the loading dock at the post office and make it back to work at the trucking company for my night job.

All of this time people were telling me that there were no jobs, as they are now while I was working three. I'm not buying the "poverty cycle" pitch as we were poorer than those receiving welfare are right now. There is work, it may not pay as well as welfare unless you get more than one job, but it can be done. I'm not talking from the viewpoint of someone who was born well off and hasn't been there and just doesn't know. I'm talking from the viewpoint of someone who had $48.00 a month coming in to a family of three.

Did you grow up in housing project in the inner city, as a product of multiple generations who have lived of public assistance, surrounded by drugs and crime – with no father at all – ever? I'm betting somewhere, somehow someone provided an example that instilled a work ethic in you. If not, you are a rare exception. Like I said, it rarely happens spontaneously. People learn it by example. If you grow up in an environment where people who provide those examples are few and far between, you’re likely to continue doing what you know and what you’ve seen all your life. It’s a culture -- a way of life. Whether you think it’s right or wrong or that you managed to break out of poverty doesn’t mean the poverty cycle doesn’t exist and that it doesn’t keep people from advancing. Sometimes understanding something requires that you think outside your own experience.

No, there were no housing projects back then, the government didn't provide free housing and food, that is how all of this mess got started. You either worked or you starved. The exception was the soup lines during the great depression. My father was largely gone during my youth at sea, after he retired he was largely gone to a bar every night. There was no example for me of a good work ethic, just a hunger because we didn't have enough food after he died.

By providing all of the things that people should have to work for the government, make that the liberals, have created this nanny state. Things were actually better off in the sixties for the poor than they are now, they knew then that they had to work. They know now that there are cradle to grave entitlement programs that will provide them with food, shelter and free health care. Now, there are housing projects riddled with crime, it just didn't work so well, did it?

As I said, I was once poorer than these people are now and yes, there were times that I did steal just to eat. There are a lot of examples of those coming from such conditions that have made something of themselves. Poor parenting can be blamed, but if people never had this huge government teat to begin with, you have to wonder if they wouldn't all be better off now. By giving everything to people the government has done more harm than good.

I already said that some poorly conceived and managed government programs are partly the cause of the poverty cycle. You said, “I'm not buying the poverty cycle" – yet clearly it exists and it keeps people from advancing. It’s there, it’s real – and fixing things goes beyond telling people to go get a job. It would require a complete overhaul of how we create and manage social programs, and it would take at least another generation for there to be any real change in the mindset and culture that perpetuates poverty in this country.

The poverty cycle exists. There are some jobs out there. It is possible for some to escape. If all realised that the potential is there to escape and did so at the same time then the problem would recreate itself because all those people would be competing for the same jobs and not all would get them.

Well, it would never happen at the same time, but theoretically, if more people broke the cycle, there would be more demand for goods and services, jobs would be created and the economy would grow to accommodate subsequent people as they broke the cycle.

Coming from where I have, I simply find it hard to feel sorry for people who have lived for three generations on welfare.

This isn’t really about feeling sorry for people. It’s about recognizing what the real problems are. Once that's done, people can talk about how to fix things. If your experience prevents you from looking at the bigger picture, then maybe you should look into it more and consider things beyond your own sphere before you start a debate on the subject.

I've always been a big fan of exploring a "work for benefits" plan of some sort. There are public-sector projects that always need a top-up of labour somewhere. Anything from highway/park trash collection to census work to any odd job that requires labour of some sort. The variety of labour can fit most any skill set and physical abilities. Major barriers to this are the public unions of course, that generally get paid very well for the types of work we're discussing.

I think it's in society's best interest to focus on helping those who are actively trying to escape the poverty cycle, particularly children and young adults who will pay back the investment many times over if you get them into the tax pool early.

From there, I think it's important to have strict safeguards on public programs to prevent abuse. It may be more expensive for the first while to strongly enforce than it would be to just let the abuse go on, but we're dealing with programs we want to be sustainable over the long-term, and that involves resetting the culture surrounding them. Consider it a long-term investment on helping the truly needy.