Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 188 posts

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

#51

Post by solomatov »

snarfy wrote: post #39
projectileboy wrote: post #35

Getting average citizens worked up over welfare is a standard way for the extremely wealthy and powerful to distract those same average citizens from noticing where their tax money gets squandered the most - large corporate subsidies, infrastructure projects that benefit the richest neighborhoods, and so on, and so on. The largest welfare programs I know of are unneeded weapons systems, which very intentionally subco…

The amount paid to corporate subsidies is pretty obscene: http://imgur.com/ttNcwHA

Actually I opened the source: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/09/23/add-it-average-...

Here're their largest points:

1. $1268 - for overpriced medications

2. $1231 - for revenue loss from tax havens

3. $870 - for corporate tax subsidies

All of them are very questionable.

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

#52

Post by oldmanjay »

rayiner wrote: post #24
err4nt wrote: post #4

I grew up in Canada and went to school with rural kids, military kids, and french kids. My family wasnt in poverty but we didnt have many of the nice things others had. Around grade 5 I began to notice how we never had money for a TV, but all the welfare kids I knew had TVs in their rooms. i noticed how I had to do chores, work, save, and help neighbours to afford to buy a game console and video games, and all my fri…

Look at it this other way: is there something we could afford to provide for the cost of those TVs and iPhones that would ensure a good chance of those people lifting themselves out of poverty? If the answer is yes, then you've discovered a game changer: for a few thousand dollars per person, we could end poverty! The government should just buy those things for people directly and watch the magic happen. If the answe…

no, they're just wasting money foolishly and then gawping about like goldfish when they have no money left for things that matter. so maybe it's stupid to complain, but that doesn't make it smart to facilitate.

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

#53

Post by PythonicAlpha »

Given, there is a corrupting influence of undeserved money on people ...

Something similar would be interesting to know (but I guess, will never be researched):

How corrupting is the influence of state-money poured into many industries of western nations, because those states want to support their own big industries (like military industry, energy, ...) and are lobbied into doing so ... the result: Money goes on and on into the same corporations, but small companies get nothing.

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

#54

Post by mikeash »

solomatov wrote: post #48
snarfy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount paid to corporate subsidies is pretty obscene: http://imgur.com/ttNcwHA

Are you sure that all these corporate subsidies are that bad? Do you have information of breakdown of the target of subsidies by companies? For example, Tesla receive about 5b$ of government subsidies. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015... This, I think, is investment which really worth it, it's the most innovative automotive company in the world, and it would be impossible without this.

Nitpick: the $4.9 billion figure is for Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity combined.

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

#55

Post by jokoon »

bigforbritches wrote: post #23
JupiterMoon wrote: post #17

> The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. So no agenda there then.

Agenda or not, data-driven or not, thoroughly studied or not, authoritative-backers or not it all boils down to how people feel about welfare. All else is largely pencil-pushing. If you want to shape economic policy that is sustainable & impactful, it has to make a large allowance for how people feel about welfare. Let me elaborate. You can make well-reasoned arguments and appeal to the sound nature of people and hop…

> most sensible workaday Americans

Let those people be thankful they have a job, instead of complaining about the one who don't. If they are not satisfied, let them ask for a raise or quit and join people on welfare.

Your feelings of "hurt" makes me chuckle. Handouts have the merits of inhibiting crime and violence. You do not want to have so many people on the street without anything to put a foot on, ready to organize for riots and reaping chaos.

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

#56

Post by legutierr »

snarfy wrote: post #39
projectileboy wrote: post #35

Getting average citizens worked up over welfare is a standard way for the extremely wealthy and powerful to distract those same average citizens from noticing where their tax money gets squandered the most - large corporate subsidies, infrastructure projects that benefit the richest neighborhoods, and so on, and so on. The largest welfare programs I know of are unneeded weapons systems, which very intentionally subco…

The amount paid to corporate subsidies is pretty obscene: http://imgur.com/ttNcwHA

Is this accurate? It basically says that middle class people spend six times as much paying for corporate subsidies than they spend paying for things like defense, welfare payments, medicare, etc., combined. The fact that the information is conveyed using a poor-quality jpeg screenshot of an unattributed infographic from two years ago, however, does not inspire confidence.

The two sources at the bottom of the graphic are redirected to the following:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/09/23/add-it-average-...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/2014-taxreceipt

It looks like this claim is based on aggregating direct subsidies, inflated profits enabled by government mandates and protections, and lost tax income resulting from preferential tax policies and tax shelters.

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

#57

Post by mikeash »

rayiner wrote: post #24
err4nt wrote: post #4

I grew up in Canada and went to school with rural kids, military kids, and french kids. My family wasnt in poverty but we didnt have many of the nice things others had. Around grade 5 I began to notice how we never had money for a TV, but all the welfare kids I knew had TVs in their rooms. i noticed how I had to do chores, work, save, and help neighbours to afford to buy a game console and video games, and all my fri…

Look at it this other way: is there something we could afford to provide for the cost of those TVs and iPhones that would ensure a good chance of those people lifting themselves out of poverty? If the answer is yes, then you've discovered a game changer: for a few thousand dollars per person, we could end poverty! The government should just buy those things for people directly and watch the magic happen. If the answe…

What if there is such a thing, but it only works if the people themselves do it, not the government?

For a concrete example, it seems to me that one thing that helps people get out of poverty is having some savings. Being poor is expensive, often because large expenses compound due to financing, late fees, or even just an inability to make bulk purchases. Having a financial cushion can make life a lot cheaper. But there's no way (that I can see, anyway) that the government can provide such a cushion for someone who wants to spend it right away on irrelevant stuff.

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

#58

Post by mikeash »

michaelbuddy wrote: post #14
rayiner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? No. 15% of the population is at or below the poverty line. Very few of them have ment illness or addiction. Most are simply born into circumstances with little opportunity (urban or rural), and don't have the exceptional qualities needed to break out of those trajectories.

People who aren't exceptional work and save money all the time. Working jobs doesn't require exceptional people. Also do you know the 'poverty' line isn't exactly the line where you're happy or sad. Many people are there and afford all necessities.

Working jobs doesn't require exceptional people. Lifting yourself out of poverty by working jobs often does.

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

#59

Post by IkmoIkmo »

jostmey wrote: post #2

The cash assistance programs being cited were carried out in poor countries, from what I can tell. Maybe that works in a country where you never have enough. I'm not sure the results apply here to the United States. I could not disagree more with the title, based on my own observations. I mean, aren't most of the people in this country poor because of mental illness or addiction?

Tons of studies have been done for the last few decades and they show a pretty solid consensus (not completely unanimous but it's pretty strong) that wealth and success in this country are very largely hereditary, that socioeconomic mobility is pretty flat (and very flat relative to other developed economies except maybe the UK) and that the American dream (rags to riches for anyone who works hard, i.e. social mobility based on merit and effort) is a myth.

So no, if you're poor in the US it's not just because you've got a mental illness, that's a very wrong view of the world. Poverty is a big issue in the US and it is distinct from many (not all) developed economies for having a lot of working poverty, i.e. people who are not ill, do not suffer substance abuse, who aren't homeless and who have a job (often multiple) and yet are poor. That is very much an American phenomenon, no other developed country has so many normal people who have jobs and yet are poor and who struggle to leave their children a better life than they enjoyed.

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

#60

Post by nraynaud »

I come from a country where the thinking is that people gets minimal helps for the government in exchange for them not voting for the nazis, like the Germans did (that's the shorter, but I think it's fair). Every country has its story and point of view on welfare.

I just hope they don't go too American here, because I have not been employed in the last 3 years.

Post reply on HN