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Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

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Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#101

Post by ToucanLoucan »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #75
_nalply wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The reason is seems fair to refer to it somewhat metaphorically as a war is this: you don't have to go back far in US (or human) history to find a time when the existence of poverty was view as a failure of the system . That is, poor people begging in the streets reflected on the economic and social systems, and reflected badly. Somehow, as the US became rich enough and successful enough to end all of that, we switch…

As with most things, we can blame Reagan and the political movement that shaped him. The aggression against people who need help has direct roots to Reagan's (in)famous welfare queen talking points, that were mirrored overseas with Thatcher and her ilk. This myth of these (not stated but implied to be) black women who were having all these children and cashing government checks to live a luxurious lifestyle. And like, yes, if you zoom out to the entire country, welfare fraud is a thing that occurs but the rate of it's occurrence is absurdly low, and moreover, the ones that do occur are far from living high on the hog off the public dole. There is NO evidence for any of that shit but it was all the conservatives banged on for for literal decades as they slashed the social safety nets to tatters and added more and more disgusting means testing and restrictions to what little benefits were left.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#102

Post by hellojesus »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #45
hellojesus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And all that's not even going into things like the pandemic business loans that were handed out like fucking candy, many to businesses that barely even existed at the time, to the tune of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, most of which were entirely forgiven after the fact. It was a terrible system with malaligned incentives, but it was the government's attempt to not violate 5A. Had those loans not…

> It was a terrible system with malaligned incentives, but it was the government's attempt to not violate 5A. Is there a source for this? This seems incredibly shaky, basically saying that because of public health mandates, the government had to "repay" businesses for lost business/the inability to conduct business, which is just... not the same thing. Lost business is at best a nebulous "I might've made X" propositi…

Had the government done the proper thing of letting consumers decide for themselves if they wanted to keep going to bars or gyms, there would be no issue. Businesses would have lost customers naturally and folded due to a lack of revenue.

But that's not what happened in the US. In many states, the state government forbade service businesses from operating and actively revoked licenses and/or fined businesses that tried to operate. [1]

Why did they force businesses to close? To prevent covid transmission. That is definitionly done for the public good and is therefore subject to 5A. Here is the relevamt text from the ammendment: """ ... nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. """

A quick ddg search isn't turning anything up for ppp and 5th ammendment, but it's obvious it applies.

[1] https://www.nj.com/news/2023/03/nj-gym-owners-who-defied-mur...

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#103

Post by mckn1ght »

nvahalik wrote: post #30
datadrivenangel wrote: post #6

We're not fighting poverty, we're fighting poor people! Which is a very expensive war, so it might be cheaper to give some of that money to the poor people, so they can spend it more effectively.

Yes, but _why_ are they poor? This is the thing that bothers me about this conversation more than anything. It's like giving pain killers to someone who has pain—in some cases that may be the only real solution but arguably the vast, VAST majority of the time, there is a basic desire to do the same thing repeatedly hoping for a different outcome. Giving money to people who aren't willing to change only perpetuates th…

> Many people who were "formerly poor" will repeat the saying ad nauseam: poverty is a mindset.

Sounds like survivorship bias. How many chronically poor think that?

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#104

Post by hellojesus »

shuntress wrote: post #67
hellojesus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. The only reason people work is because the expected value of their work maximizes their utility curve when compared to the opportunity costs. I go to work because I need money to live. I find employment by maximizing the pay I'm able to get conditional om my skillset and preferred job functions. But I don't see why people with lower skillsets or utility curves that weigh leisure more highly than work activ…

> I don't see why people with lower skillsets or utility curves that weigh leisure more highly than work activities should be allowed to leech off the productive capacities of others First, this is an extremely toxic attitude. Second, do you really think that people living paycheck-to-paycheck in jobs that are just barely tolerable enough to keep them from quitting are "maximizing their utility curve when compared to…

> Much more likely is they are stuck at a low local maxima because they can't afford to spend 2 weeks looking for a job that would better fit their skillset and preferred job functions.

Yes, that is quite possible, and I believe my comment covered that possibility by constraining their poaition against the opportunity cost. In this case, the opportunity cost of working is not searching for another job. But if you can't afford food while searching for another job, obviously you should work.

Hence! why I am a proponent of private charity. Under those same conditions, said person could go to their church, local org, etc. and see if anyone would be willing to assist them in a job search or while they did search. This solution is much preferable to me than involuntary theft of money from everyone to support a maybe chance of finding something else.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#105

Post by ToucanLoucan »

hellojesus wrote: post #102
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was a terrible system with malaligned incentives, but it was the government's attempt to not violate 5A. Is there a source for this? This seems incredibly shaky, basically saying that because of public health mandates, the government had to "repay" businesses for lost business/the inability to conduct business, which is just... not the same thing. Lost business is at best a nebulous "I might've made X" propositi…

Had the government done the proper thing of letting consumers decide for themselves if they wanted to keep going to bars or gyms, there would be no issue. Businesses would have lost customers naturally and folded due to a lack of revenue. But that's not what happened in the US. In many states, the state government forbade service businesses from operating and actively revoked licenses and/or fined businesses that tri…

> Had the government done the proper thing of letting consumers decide for themselves if they wanted to keep going to bars or gyms, there would be no issue.

Oh this is going to be one of those conversations. I see. No thank you.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#106

Post by pandaman »

shuntress wrote: post #52
atoav wrote: post #18

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 ne…

This is not directly related to your comment but the funny thing about the "trickle down" metaphor is that it actually makes a very strong case against Reaganomics. "Water", in the metaphor, is obviously money and as we all know water (for the most part) "trickles down" from places where there is less of it to places where there is more of it. The rich get richer. The poor stay poorer. Without regular and constant ap…

It's funny because the "trickle down" metaphor has been made up by a Democrat humorist [1]. On the same note, why would you think it was made up for Republicans?

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#107

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #101
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is seems fair to refer to it somewhat metaphorically as a war is this: you don't have to go back far in US (or human) history to find a time when the existence of poverty was view as a failure of the system . That is, poor people begging in the streets reflected on the economic and social systems, and reflected badly. Somehow, as the US became rich enough and successful enough to end all of that, we switch…

As with most things, we can blame Reagan and the political movement that shaped him. The aggression against people who need help has direct roots to Reagan's (in)famous welfare queen talking points, that were mirrored overseas with Thatcher and her ilk. This myth of these (not stated but implied to be) black women who were having all these children and cashing government checks to live a luxurious lifestyle. And like…

Right, this was sort of the point I made in another comment here.

I know that a solid safety net will result in some freeloading. But when I trade off the negatives of the limited freeloading that I believe will occur against the massive benefits of a population that is healthy, fed, housed, secure ... there's just no contest. If I have to pay a tiny bit extra because a few people are scamming the system, I frankly don't care, and I certainly don't advocate for the destruction of the entire system because of it.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#108

Post by hellojesus »

gruez wrote: post #76
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it fair to redistribute wealth from people who are working, to give it to people who don't? I kinda think you missed the point. This is actually just another one of those clichés. Surely you can see how this sort of communication doesn't promote a healthy discussion. Is there an argument that you want to make or are you just going to demand that someone argue against your cliché?

>I kinda think you missed the point. This is actually just another one of those clichés. Surely you can see how this sort of communication doesn't promote a healthy discussion. And sticking to calling out fallacies while failing to discuss the object level question is? >Is there an argument that you want to make or are you just going to demand that someone argue against your cliché? 1. if you look carefully I'm not t…

I am the original commentor. My intention was to form an assertion that could be disproved via a counterexample.

Let me try again: Why should citizen A have to involuntarily transfer their private property gained through voluntary economic transactions to citizen B?

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#109

Post by godelski »

atoav wrote: post #18

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 ne…

I think there's some more important factors to add. Many of these problems are exceptionally complex and have no universal solution due to the chaotic nature (i.e. perturbations in initial conditions cause large variations). Often politicians are presenting simple solutions and the voters also are asking for simple solutions. So politicians consider what can be done within an election cycle and voters are not considering the effects of policy often have delayed onsets and the effects will not honestly be known for several election cycles. This is especially interesting to see as many people choose the president based on the current state of the economy. This is conditioned on several bad premises: 1) the president is the major driver of the economy, 2) policies have immediate effects (or at least short term onsets), 3) the economy is predominantly politically driven. These are all examples of short term thinking but there are more complex interactions at play as well. We haven't even talked about congress. Some of these things aren't even true under dictatorships. I'm not sure why we frame them this way but I think it is a destructive feedback loop.
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