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Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

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Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#11

Post by tharmas »

pierat wrote: post #7
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #4

> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resourc…

Yep, this boomer and silent gerontocracy is why we ended up with the biggest wealth transfer FROM younger generations to them. It's also how we got DARE garbage, of bandying around drugs to 6th graders and saying "doooont useeee theseeee", combined with lies like 'smoking a marijuanas will lead to your death!". (Massive kudos to Erowid, for debunking so much of these lies.) But it's unsurprising the biggest gerontocr…

The most egregious thing the Boomers did is they watered down the anti-monopoly laws. That was Bill Clinton's regime. I could be wrong on that, maybe it was Ronald Reagan's regime. Either way it was the Boomers.

The enemy of the success of Capitalism is monopolies.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#12

Post by hnbad »

Clearly the function of means checking is not to reduce costs as the process is expensive and the ROI compared to combatting tax fraud.

Clearly the function of means checking is not to restrict access to only those in need as it often creates hoops to jump through that can be impenetrable for those who need it the most.

So maybe the function of means checking is to do what it succeeds at doing, which is creating an "us" vs "them" distinction, to give even those scarcely outside the eligibility someone to look down on and accuse of fraud and being "welfare queens" and to maintain a negative attitude toward those in need while strengthening association with those on "your" side even if their financial situation is a thousand lifetimes removed from yours and poverty is only a bad month or health issue away.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#13

Post by LucienSchwab »

Poverty means you consume more than you produce. I assume poverty here is money-poverty. Poverty is relative. The implicit question is how to distribute resources to individuals according to how much good they provide to society. Good is the meaning of life, reproduction/sustainability and creation/development/infinitePonzi, really complex to estimate. We have invented money as an abstract representation of resources (food, clothes, energy, services, attention).

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#14

Post by lapcat »

tharmas wrote: post #11
pierat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this boomer and silent gerontocracy is why we ended up with the biggest wealth transfer FROM younger generations to them. It's also how we got DARE garbage, of bandying around drugs to 6th graders and saying "doooont useeee theseeee", combined with lies like 'smoking a marijuanas will lead to your death!". (Massive kudos to Erowid, for debunking so much of these lies.) But it's unsurprising the biggest gerontocr…

The most egregious thing the Boomers did is they watered down the anti-monopoly laws. That was Bill Clinton's regime. I could be wrong on that, maybe it was Ronald Reagan's regime. Either way it was the Boomers. The enemy of the success of Capitalism is monopolies.

> The most egregious thing the Boomers did is they watered down the anti-monopoly laws. That was Bill Clinton's regime. I could be wrong on that, maybe it was Ronald Reagan's regime. Either way it was the Boomers.

Ronald Reagan was born in 1911, 35 years earlier than Bill Clinton, and turned 70 years old right after he took office in 1981.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#15

Post by mathgradthrow »

My father and I fight about this a lot. His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. I understand his complaint, but the empirical evidence for it is that, when welfare was tied to having children, people apparently gamed the system by using less money on their kids than the welfare provided. This seems like it's probably most american's understanding of a welfare system, and my father is totally unwilling to consider that this problem of incentives can be remedied, though he is reasonably easy to convince of the value of giving employees negotiating power to quit their jobs and be able to survive.

For me this is where the entire argument lies. A basic income (that does not depend on children) asserts the right to subsist without a job. Employment can offer you a better life, but it should not be able to offer you life itself. An employer that wields that carrot also wields that stick, and can exploit the difference to incredible social harm.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#17

Post by hellojesus »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #15

My father and I fight about this a lot. His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. I understand his complaint, but the empirical evidence for it is that, when welfare was tied to having children, people apparently gamed the system by using less money on their kids than the welfare provided. This seems like it's probably most american's understanding of a welfare system, and my fath…

[flagged]

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#18

Post by atoav »

Everything that is wrong with the way most of the political class pretends to fight poverty can be traced back to one principle: Divide and Conquer

Solving a problem is a very stupid idea if:

- your wealth depends on not solving it

- people keep voting for you to solve it

Not to get too political, but this equally applies to politicans who have chosen "foreigners" as their issue. A former friend of mine who turned neo nazi once asked me in a discussion to give him one reason not to vote for $horrible_xenophobic_party. My reason was that they won't solve his problem with foreigners. The last time they had been in government the migration was higher than during the social democratic government before and after. If they would have solved it, they would have taken away the number one topic for which people keep voting them. They are interested in power, corruption and neoliberal economics, the foreigner schtick is just a vehicle to get there.

With poverty it is very similar. Many political parties take poverty as a decoy to explain why the policy they wanted to do anyways will solve it. E.g. cutting social security or ramping up police funding. Actual policies that help have to do with taxing the rich more, giving poor people the access to education and solving basic needs so they can actually make use of that access etc.

But yeah. Trickle down. Any minute now.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#19

Post by cenazoic »

_nalply wrote: post #8
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #4

> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resourc…

Sorry to disagree, but I don't think it is hatred and it is not a war. I think it is indifference mixed with selfishness and a collection of many little or perhaps not so little power grabs. One example might be that poor people can't rent a flat somewhere they can have a good life, because everybody else is already there and this is expressed in a rent poor people can't afford. Another little power grab: Call a taxi…

I understand what you’re saying, but I would suggest this is exactly the ‘banality of evil’ Hannah Arendt wrote about.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#20

Post by isk517 »

tharmas wrote: post #9
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #4

> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resourc…

In the USA (and UK) if you are poor you are considered a LOSER! Society in these two cultures is all about Winners and LOSERS. If you are not rich you are a LOSER. A LOSER is a pariah. Everybody loves Winners and hates Losers. If the game is rigged, then you lost because you didn't figure out how to manipulate it for your benefit. That makes you a loser. This belief or philosophy or religion is also known as "Surviva…

>If you are not rich you are a LOSER.

Should be 'If you are not trying to become rich you are a LOSER.' Not being rich only makes you a small l loser, which as we all know is what happens to a Winner who cannot support all of the deadweight of LOSERS cling to them and definitely not in no part due to the actions of the rich winners.

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