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The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

nytimes.com

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Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#151

Post by tsotha »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #109
delinka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all you'll ever get is anecdote if you look in the U.S. The "welfare professionals" (let's define this term to mean those that know precisely the minimum of effort to maintain the illusion of 'seeking gainful employment' in order to keep their handouts) keep a low-profile and compartmentalize well. Going to the welfare office today? Don't wear new/"in" clothing, don't take the iDevice with. Out and about socially…

Yup, you definitely sound like you have never been poor.

Oh yes. What could an HN story that involves poverty be without yet another round of "You don't know poor people. Let me tell you about poverty."

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#152

Post by tsotha »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #85
Matumio wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually one of the arguments for UBI (unconditional basic income) - it would reduce the problem that welfare can't reach many of the people who are supposed to benefit from it but too proud to ask for help. (UBI would also reduce the welfare trap mentioned in the Cato article.)

So instead of trying to allocate limited resources to those who most need it we should instead blindly split those resources equally among everyone? And this will help the poor how?

The idea is everyone ends up better off because you don't need a giant civil service bureaucracy to apply arcane rules about who does and does not qualify for various subsidies.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#153

Post by tsotha »

lostcolony wrote: post #44
xacaxulu wrote: post #13

I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college. Even coming from a background that should have led my family to use welfare (mom was too proud and cleaned houses instead) I tend to lean more towards the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help. The CATO Institute does a lot…

A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Rich kids don't feel compelled to enlist just to make financial ends meet. Even I (single parent household, parent was a teacher), when faced with an inability to find a job when out of high school, had the grades and support to 'fall back' onto college instead. I wasn't forced to risk my life just to stay…

>A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people.

Not borne out by the statistics. The average recruit comes from a family that's better educated and wealthier than the average American. The real problem with poor people using the military to lift themselves out of poverty is so many of them can't enlist as a consequence of obesity or a criminal record.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#154

Post by rdtsc »

damagedcake wrote: post #149
rdtsc wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One strike against them is they already believe in some magical deity who created Earth in 7 day or some such thing. That serves as a singal to other "predators" if you wish that means "I am easy to manipulate". Just say a few words about Jesus and they'll follow. Look at some of the quotes he used and language. It was very effective. Also, another plus, unlike other religious groups they already belong to large cong…

"Evangelical" is a pretty broad term. You seem to have cherry-picked some sets of beliefs and characteristics to support your belief. For example, not all evangelicals are young earthers. Also not all, and probably not even most, attend the type of megachurch you keep talking about. "Just say a few words about Jesus and they'll follow" is another straw man. There are plenty of Christians who wouldn't identify as evan…

> For example, not all evangelicals are young earthers

It was just an example.

> There are plenty of Christians who wouldn't identify as evangelical who also will try to use the words of Jesus to their advantage

Agreed. Used in the context of elections it is clear what the purpose was.

> Belief in God is not the same thing as giving up rationality; which you seem to indicate. That's a common bias a lot of people have.

It is one of the indicators. Most of all it is an indicator that they will probably listen and follow whatever the pastor of the megachurch suggests.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter if I think they are rational or not, but that those in power who need to mobilize their vote need to think. Think of it as getting the lowest bang for your campaign buck. Who do you appeal to? They are a nice group, and it clearly worked!

Obama did the same thing, so I am not really playing for the Democrat's team or anything, liberals can be easily manipulated. Obama campaign for Hope And Change for example was awarded AdAge award.

http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market...

That's an award given by a marketing agency for best marketing campaigns. Usually given to Apple, Nike, Coke and so on. Well in 2008 Obama got the prize.

> I think your post says more about you than the large group of people you want to stereotype and marginalize.

The fact that that group was used and used by a large lobbying group and that Bush's campaign kind of support my idea though. It is not much of a hypothetical.

Even the most conservative sources and Evangelicals themselves talk about being betrayed and used by Bush. I don't know what other evidence we'd need:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121384/jeb-bush-not-favor...

After all the promises and talks about Jesus they are wondering what happens to outlawing abortions, why weren't same sex marriages stopped and so on. That is what they were waiting for based on promises. Instead it was all about handouts to the military industrial complex.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#155

Post by jghn »

damagedcake wrote: post #149
rdtsc wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One strike against them is they already believe in some magical deity who created Earth in 7 day or some such thing. That serves as a singal to other "predators" if you wish that means "I am easy to manipulate". Just say a few words about Jesus and they'll follow. Look at some of the quotes he used and language. It was very effective. Also, another plus, unlike other religious groups they already belong to large cong…

"Evangelical" is a pretty broad term. You seem to have cherry-picked some sets of beliefs and characteristics to support your belief. For example, not all evangelicals are young earthers. Also not all, and probably not even most, attend the type of megachurch you keep talking about. "Just say a few words about Jesus and they'll follow" is another straw man. There are plenty of Christians who wouldn't identify as evan…

They're not all young earthers but by definition they believe stuff which is probably wrong

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#156

Post by merpnderp »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #18
merpnderp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. I think it's easier to defend the claim that the kids lacked guidance and support to take advantage of the education provided for them. In the US a single mom who homeschools, with only a high school education, wil…

Difficult to be involved if you both work 40+ hours a week doing physically demanding jobs.

And yet tens of millions of people do it every year in the US. It's all about priorities.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#157

Post by dang »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #111
dang wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10446968 and marked it off-topic.

May I enquire why you censored me? I've noticed you doing this more and more with posts that don't agree with what I can only assume must be your point of view.

It's not a question of your comment alone but of the whole subthread. Surprising digressions are often ok on HN, but predictable digressions are tedious and not in the spirit of the site. They are non-intellectual-curiosity-gratifying. Of these, predictable ideological digressions are certainly the worst and usually go downhill the fastest. All this holds regardless of the view being advocated.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#158

Post by XorNot »

zo1 wrote: post #143
XorNot wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 'poor people have refrigerators' in another guise. It is apparently a laudable goal to decay our social infrastructure till large parts of our cities will resemble African poverty.

TV's are completely different to fridges in this discussion, I'd say. One is pure entertainment, the other has functional uses that help reduce costs, as well as improve health by preventing food from going off.

That's practically irrelevant, and also stunningly blind to how humans actually function. Entertainment is important - its sufficiently important that we've dedicated considerable resources to it throughout the sum of human history, to the point that we ship giant entertainment venues to warzones.

But more to economic point: TVs are cheap. The TVs people complain about are maybe ~$500, and you can do very well if you shop second hand. They are a one-off capital expense which considerably improves your life, and which the lack of sale thereof utterly fails to meaningfully help you not be poor.

Because poverty is a flow problem, and it fails to be defined by whether or not one owns certain conspicuous goods. If we were talking about impoverished people who were nonetheless buying $3000 LCDs on debt every few years, then we might have something to talk about. But since concrete examples are always conspicuously absent when points of this nature are brought up, I'm content to point to the economics: selling your TV wouldn't meaningfully improve your situation, buying a TV doesn't meaningfully degrade it.

It's also worth noting that in a discussion of being unable to climb out of poverty, requiring people to dispose of all their worldly possessions before we help them is a good way to create a poverty trap.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#159

Post by spacemanmatt »

tsotha wrote: post #151
spacemanmatt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, you definitely sound like you have never been poor.

Oh yes. What could an HN story that involves poverty be without yet another round of "You don't know poor people. Let me tell you about poverty."

I am not offering a story. Where'd you get that? Oh, right, you imagined it.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#160

Post by damagedcake »

rdtsc wrote: post #154
damagedcake wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Evangelical" is a pretty broad term. You seem to have cherry-picked some sets of beliefs and characteristics to support your belief. For example, not all evangelicals are young earthers. Also not all, and probably not even most, attend the type of megachurch you keep talking about. "Just say a few words about Jesus and they'll follow" is another straw man. There are plenty of Christians who wouldn't identify as evan…

> For example, not all evangelicals are young earthers It was just an example. > There are plenty of Christians who wouldn't identify as evangelical who also will try to use the words of Jesus to their advantage Agreed. Used in the context of elections it is clear what the purpose was. > Belief in God is not the same thing as giving up rationality; which you seem to indicate. That's a common bias a lot of people have…

That's a very reasonable response for the most part, thank you. I still take exception to the terminology "brain-washed" and the general premise. Your point about Obama's advertising award actually makes my case for me. In that sense, I could very easily make the claim that 50% of our country had been "brain-washed." In fact, many people in more conservative parts of the internet would make that kind of statement; and they would be wrong too. It's a derogatory phrase.

As for betrayal...yes, of course. That explains a lot (not all) of what is going on in the Republican primaries this year. Unfortunately, politics nearly always involves compromise to achieve common ground. Also unfortunately, evangelicals generally don't have a belief system that adequately addresses politics in the setting of a democracy or republic.

Here's an interesting thought expirement...if 10 years down the road the African-American vote left the Democratic party...would one go around saying they had been "easily brain-washed"? Such statements would probably be challenged (and should be) just as I've challenged it here.

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