Defining individuals with labels such as Conservative or Liberal is a sure way to misjudge them. It is just another form of prejudice.
The welfare state was created because we cannot bear to see people starving in the streets. We have not, and will not ever completly eliminate poverty in the world, because what we call poverty today would be considered luxury 200 years ago. It's a relative term.
When we provide food stamps to people who will not work, they cannot buy cigarettes, alchohol or drugs with them, but it does allow them to buy those items with cash they would need to use for food if they did not receive the food stamps. In essence, we subsidize bad behavior, so it will continue.
It's a fact of nature that a competitive culture of any organism is healthier than one which is kept in captivity and fed by unnatural means. For example, wild animals live in a much better state than do well fed zoo animals. This is a fact of nature.
People who work at Walmart FULL TIME and overtime if allowed and often a second job as well...are using SNAP benefits and Medicaid. Because they are paid shit wages.
The fantasy of people who "won't work" bleeding the system is the same trope as the "Welfare Queen".
The big subsidies nobody wants to talk about are for companies that are allowed to buy back their own stock with their tax break giveaways.
Want less people subsidized by the government? Require companies to pay a living wage.
And then there is the welfare for the oil companies and insane tax breaks for the oligarchs who have more money than the gods.
You are absolutely correct Bill. From 32 years working directly with recipients for 14 of those years - the other 18 years in the program end, I learned that the majority of "welfare" recipients do want to work, but the system, even in the 1990's was rigged against them. Some were physically disabled, some had terminal diseases, some had mental conditions which prevented employment, a few had criminal records, most lacked sufficient education to make them employable in sustainable jobs. People who have never been in the system either as employees or recipients have little understanding of Social Services: how difficult it is to qualify, how little these families are paid, how limited the employment opportunities are.
And you are also correct that the Government (prior to trump) was actually facilitating fast food, low cost restaurants, retail stores by supplementing their underpaid employees with food assistance and medical assistance.
Add to that the shifting of wealth from the bottom 70% to the top 10% has been extremely harmful to the United States as a country.
dead employees are replaceable. never heard of anyone going bankrupt with dead employees.
Do you know that 65,000 workers died building the first transcontinental railroad? Do you know Henry Ford always had extra workers ready to take over when a worker got severely injured or died?
Don't tell me oh that's long ago. I worked an assembly line a piece of sheet metal sliced an artery. Only reason I can tell you about it, the factory medic arrived before my replacement but I couldn't leave the line for five minutes.
Every factory and molding job always had a couple of substitutes on hand in case someone gets injured.
you're also wrong, wages get slashed not increased when the business slows down. Today places like Wal-Mart have found a new option. Instead of replacing workers, they increase the workload on the ones in hand.
And what would be a decent wage? $20 an hour. Then you won't buy at Wal-mart anymore.
Service jobs are now a very high percentage of jobs today --more and more buy online---that means more & more brick & mortar jobs are going to be needed?
Now what?
Last year I worked before I start losing my sight I was making $5000 a month and trying to support nine people.
And that 5000 was 16 hours a day every single day, roughly 480 hours a month,just barely over $5 an hour.
Have you ever labored long days, been injured on jobs, been laid off cause they needn't need you anymore? Do you know what life is?
Have you ever walked across this country and met the people who live in it?
Have you ever taken hungry people into your home and seen them thank you by washing the dishes for you? Have you ever sheltered anyone for a night.
Oh, no, because they don't work,right? Ah, but many have. Stray teenagers whose parents left them scrounging around doing whatever they can. Two-parent working families with seven children,two dogs and a cat, but they couldn't pay their rent because one of the kids got sick. Hey they could have probably gotten govt. aid (well eventually they did for their medical bills.) but I took him in and I refused money.
Every dime I ever made I used it to help someone.
So now you want to begrudge me $200 a month for me and my wife ($50 a week for 2--live on that.) You're halfway smart man, but you don't know fucking thing about people in this country!
Goddamn it man look around you! I'm shutting up now because Ms.Faye is going to ban me from her site now. 4
I have had many jobs shut down. I have many contacts and a reputation for working hard and working smart as a team player. So when one job ended, there were usually others from which to choose.
There were droughts, such as when Jimmy Carter drove the ship aground, and I still found work.
I worked as a carpenter helper, a fry cook, a roustabout offshore, a welder's helper, a parts runner and a painter at various times to fill the gaps. My first job was mopping floors and stocking the shelves at the local convenience store for 35 cents an hour.
I have never let an employer abuse me. When they did, I quit without benefit of negotiation. Everyone should do that. If they did, there would be fewer abusive employers and zero need for crooked unions. Wages would also improve. Every move I made improved my wages.
You assume much when judging that I have not been around the block. To answer all of your ignorant questions, I know work and I know lazy people (of mind and body). They all are well served by the school of hard knocks. Some, however, never learn that the lazy road is the harder road.
how many people who have not been defeated by life have you known who didn't want to work...granted there's a hell of a lot of people who feel totally wiped out...it's called a society gone mad.
my point however was how much of that work you did helped feed and shelter others in need
I help those who I personally know. I only help those who truly try to help themselves. Yes, I discriminate against the lazy ones. That is the big problem with government assistance, it cannot discriminate. It's a soulless machine.
When I help someone both parties gain. The recipient knows someone cares and the donor gmfeels good about helping.
When a welfare recipient gets that check, does he get the feeling that someone cares? No. In the long term he becomes resentful. The donor (taxpayer) does not get a warm fuzzy by being forced at gunpoint to donate indiscriminately to unknown persons. Furthermore, he only sees the problem worsening, making him resenful as well.
I donate to charity orgs, but virtue signalling on a public forum is not my style. You do you.
Currently twelve percent of American families receive food stamps.
75% of those have at least one family member who work.
33% of the families who are getting food stamps have two members of the household who work.
18% of the remaining twenty-five percent are seniors.
Half of those seniors (9%) do earn some outside income.
I have this little rule of thumb. Whenever I hear someone say things like all people who get food stamps don't work, or whatever it is, I look up stats. So I did it two minutes ago on the official govt website and those are the numbers I got,as of April 1, 2025.
Maybe you should try it sometime Maybe a few congressmen should too.
Defining individuals with labels such as Conservative or Liberal is a sure way to misjudge them. It is just another form of prejudice.
The welfare state was created because we cannot bear to see people starving in the streets. We have not, and will not ever completly eliminate poverty in the world, because what we call poverty today would be considered luxury 200 years ago. It's a relative term.
When we provide food stamps to people who will not work, they cannot buy cigarettes, alchohol or drugs with them, but it does allow them to buy those items with cash they would need to use for food if they did not receive the food stamps. In essence, we subsidize bad behavior, so it will continue.
It's a fact of nature that a competitive culture of any organism is healthier than one which is kept in captivity and fed by unnatural means. For example, wild animals live in a much better state than do well fed zoo animals. This is a fact of nature.
Well hello child of Ayn Rand!
People who work at Walmart FULL TIME and overtime if allowed and often a second job as well...are using SNAP benefits and Medicaid. Because they are paid shit wages.
The fantasy of people who "won't work" bleeding the system is the same trope as the "Welfare Queen".
The big subsidies nobody wants to talk about are for companies that are allowed to buy back their own stock with their tax break giveaways.
Want less people subsidized by the government? Require companies to pay a living wage.
And then there is the welfare for the oil companies and insane tax breaks for the oligarchs who have more money than the gods.
You are absolutely correct Bill. From 32 years working directly with recipients for 14 of those years - the other 18 years in the program end, I learned that the majority of "welfare" recipients do want to work, but the system, even in the 1990's was rigged against them. Some were physically disabled, some had terminal diseases, some had mental conditions which prevented employment, a few had criminal records, most lacked sufficient education to make them employable in sustainable jobs. People who have never been in the system either as employees or recipients have little understanding of Social Services: how difficult it is to qualify, how little these families are paid, how limited the employment opportunities are.
And you are also correct that the Government (prior to trump) was actually facilitating fast food, low cost restaurants, retail stores by supplementing their underpaid employees with food assistance and medical assistance.
Add to that the shifting of wealth from the bottom 70% to the top 10% has been extremely harmful to the United States as a country.
Here we go with the labels.
It seems we agree in a way. Quit giving out free money and Walmart will have to pay a living wage. Dead employees don't get the shelves stocked.
The rest of your trope is envy, one of the seven deadly sins. It will consume you.
Why would they fill the gap? Because their employees might otherwise starve? Nice experiment, eh?
As to envy? Yup. I envy the nations who have figured out that education and healthcare are human rights. Basic, humane and normal.
I hear echoes of "Lord of the Flies" in your comments. Correct me if I am wrong.
You are wrong to categorize anyone based on a book you read. Each of us is unique.
I have explained natural law in the simplest of terms. Some folks get it, some don't.
dead employees are replaceable. never heard of anyone going bankrupt with dead employees.
Do you know that 65,000 workers died building the first transcontinental railroad? Do you know Henry Ford always had extra workers ready to take over when a worker got severely injured or died?
Don't tell me oh that's long ago. I worked an assembly line a piece of sheet metal sliced an artery. Only reason I can tell you about it, the factory medic arrived before my replacement but I couldn't leave the line for five minutes.
Every factory and molding job always had a couple of substitutes on hand in case someone gets injured.
you're also wrong, wages get slashed not increased when the business slows down. Today places like Wal-Mart have found a new option. Instead of replacing workers, they increase the workload on the ones in hand.
And what would be a decent wage? $20 an hour. Then you won't buy at Wal-mart anymore.
Service jobs are now a very high percentage of jobs today --more and more buy online---that means more & more brick & mortar jobs are going to be needed?
Now what?
Last year I worked before I start losing my sight I was making $5000 a month and trying to support nine people.
And that 5000 was 16 hours a day every single day, roughly 480 hours a month,just barely over $5 an hour.
Have you ever labored long days, been injured on jobs, been laid off cause they needn't need you anymore? Do you know what life is?
Have you ever walked across this country and met the people who live in it?
Have you ever taken hungry people into your home and seen them thank you by washing the dishes for you? Have you ever sheltered anyone for a night.
Oh, no, because they don't work,right? Ah, but many have. Stray teenagers whose parents left them scrounging around doing whatever they can. Two-parent working families with seven children,two dogs and a cat, but they couldn't pay their rent because one of the kids got sick. Hey they could have probably gotten govt. aid (well eventually they did for their medical bills.) but I took him in and I refused money.
Every dime I ever made I used it to help someone.
So now you want to begrudge me $200 a month for me and my wife ($50 a week for 2--live on that.) You're halfway smart man, but you don't know fucking thing about people in this country!
Goddamn it man look around you! I'm shutting up now because Ms.Faye is going to ban me from her site now. 4
I have had many jobs shut down. I have many contacts and a reputation for working hard and working smart as a team player. So when one job ended, there were usually others from which to choose.
There were droughts, such as when Jimmy Carter drove the ship aground, and I still found work.
I worked as a carpenter helper, a fry cook, a roustabout offshore, a welder's helper, a parts runner and a painter at various times to fill the gaps. My first job was mopping floors and stocking the shelves at the local convenience store for 35 cents an hour.
I have never let an employer abuse me. When they did, I quit without benefit of negotiation. Everyone should do that. If they did, there would be fewer abusive employers and zero need for crooked unions. Wages would also improve. Every move I made improved my wages.
You assume much when judging that I have not been around the block. To answer all of your ignorant questions, I know work and I know lazy people (of mind and body). They all are well served by the school of hard knocks. Some, however, never learn that the lazy road is the harder road.
how many people who have not been defeated by life have you known who didn't want to work...granted there's a hell of a lot of people who feel totally wiped out...it's called a society gone mad.
my point however was how much of that work you did helped feed and shelter others in need
I help those who I personally know. I only help those who truly try to help themselves. Yes, I discriminate against the lazy ones. That is the big problem with government assistance, it cannot discriminate. It's a soulless machine.
When I help someone both parties gain. The recipient knows someone cares and the donor gmfeels good about helping.
When a welfare recipient gets that check, does he get the feeling that someone cares? No. In the long term he becomes resentful. The donor (taxpayer) does not get a warm fuzzy by being forced at gunpoint to donate indiscriminately to unknown persons. Furthermore, he only sees the problem worsening, making him resenful as well.
I donate to charity orgs, but virtue signalling on a public forum is not my style. You do you.
Gandalf, Gandalf, please.
Currently twelve percent of American families receive food stamps.
75% of those have at least one family member who work.
33% of the families who are getting food stamps have two members of the household who work.
18% of the remaining twenty-five percent are seniors.
Half of those seniors (9%) do earn some outside income.
I have this little rule of thumb. Whenever I hear someone say things like all people who get food stamps don't work, or whatever it is, I look up stats. So I did it two minutes ago on the official govt website and those are the numbers I got,as of April 1, 2025.
Maybe you should try it sometime Maybe a few congressmen should too.
Where did I generalize that people who get food stamps do not work?
I explained why giving free money tends to make poverty worse. It's a law of nature, easily observable.
Bill agreed with me that Walmart is the big beneficiary of such programs.
I am not sure what your argument is, and I don't think you are either. Perhaps you just like arguing.