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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 w

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 subcontract work out to nearly every congressional district in the land (see the B-2 as an example).

snarfy 11y ago
The amount paid to corporate subsidies is pretty obscene: http://imgur.com/ttNcwHA http://imgur.com/ttNcwHA
- solomatov 11y ago
  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-20150531-story.html 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.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Nitpick: the $4.9 billion figure is for Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity combined.
- solomatov 11y ago
  Also, the sum $4000 sounds too round for me, especially taking into account, that other numbers provided doesn't contain so many zeroes in them.
- solomatov 11y ago
  Actually I opened the source: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/09/23/add-it-average-american-family-pays-6000-year-subsidies-big-business 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.
- legutierr 11y ago
  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-american-family-pays-6000-year-subsidies-big-business http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/09/23/add-it-average-... https://www.whitehouse.gov/2014-taxreceipt 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.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    No it's not accurate. I mean hell, $7 of your $50k goes to welfare? That's 0.014%. In reality, depending on what you want to call welfare (republicans like to call everything welfare and pretend it's bankrupting the country in order to scale it down, for example, so you have wildly different definitions in the political spectrum) it's around 5-8% of GDP. So this is just laughably inaccurate. Defense spending of $250, in reality it's closer to $2k. Then there's the corporate subsidies, they're more interesting because they're not necessarily wrong. Perhaps this number is but in general they're very high, but not in the way people normally think about subsidies. I see numbers thrown around all the time with murky definitions and it's misleading. For example, the IMF did a study that showed $5.3 trillion in oil subsidies worldwide. Gigantic number, consider world GDP is $75 trillion, US a little under $18 t. Now I'm sympathetic to the study, agree with it, and think we should take that number seriously and do something about it. I also think it constitutes a form of subsidy. But it's a bit misleading to say this means we're all paying thousands of dollars to corporate subsidies on this basis from our actual paycheck. There are different forms of subsidies and there's value in not muddying the semantics too much. What the study measures are externalities that aren't priced in. A person dies in motorised traffic? You can combat it by pricing that into the price of oil. A climate change related natural disaster happens, or we have to pay for CO2 cleanup, or healthcare costs rise due to oil-industry fumes causing lung cancer somewhere, you can price all of that in. Not pricing that in is a form of subsidy, but it's not like we take thousands of dollars from our pay check and send it to the companies to support them, very little money goes to these companies, the issue is we don't extract enough from them that we should once we look at the damage they cause, and this is technically a subsidy. The IMF measures the missed revenue from taxing fossil fuels at a lower range than it should if it prices in all externalities. Yet I've seen renowned green energy pundits in my country (the Netherlands) talk about these $5.3 trillion subsidies as if we're sending that money to corporations every year. I'm completely on their side, yet I don't think this is helpful, there's too much misleading information thrown around.
- bko 11y ago
  People talk about "corporate subsidies" as though a corporate tax number was sent down from the heavens and any amount collected less than that number is somehow equivalent of taking tax payer dollars and sending them to shareholders. No one likes a complicated manipulated tax code that favors certain firms/industries, but equating a complicated tax code that sets a higher tax rate than is normally collected to transferring tax payer dollars to shareholders of corporations is dishonest.
rdtsc 11y ago
At the end of the day it boils down to that fact that the poor as a class, are easily abused and manipulated -- by governments, private entities, even the poor themselves. One of the most perverted ways they are abused is they are convinced to vote against their own interests. For example thinking back at Obama's healthcare reform and the fate of the single payer option vis-a-vis the "get your socialist government outta my Medicare" crowd. Even further up the line, gutting education also pretty much ensures a future crowd of uneducated easily manipulated crowds for the next generation to abuse and take advantage of. So the system is already set to self-perpetuate. As a side note, speaking of manipulating, a good example is always Bush Jr. using evangelicals in his campaigns in early 2000s. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/evangelicals/bushand.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/evangeli... I think that was a brilliant move to use them, because they were a lot of them (1), they were relatively wealthy (2), they were easily reached, as they already congregated in large clubs i.e. megachurches (3), they are easily brainwashed with the right words (4).
- bko 11y ago
  Why is it that when rich people vote against their self interest and vote to raise taxes, that's considered noble. But when poor people vote against their self interest and vote for the government to take less money from people other than them, they're being manipulated?
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    I don't know, I haven't thought about their motivation and interest yet too much. But talking to a few of them in the past (one was worth probably $100m+) I undestand they want to pay more taxes to maintain infrastructure and and not push the poor too much over the edge. Prisons are already full, crime is high, inequality is high, enough kids are already starving. So it seem the more forward thinking of the wealthy can see the current course of action might not be end well for everyone. But I have a hard time believing that each poor person with less than a month in savings, working for some fast food chain, is making a rational decision voting against nationalized health care or rasing taxes, just in case they reach the American Dream, and become a successful owner of a small busininess who will be strangled and starved by high taxes from Uncle Sam when they do. One of the biggest lies is that the rich got the poor to think of themselves as not poor, but pre-wealthy. They are just a few hard working years ago from being Donald Trump, if they just worked a bit hard (because if they don't they are just a lazy and deserve it). So as such, they sure wouldn't want to vote against the interest of the future successful selves...

snarfy 11y ago

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

solomatov 11y ago
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-20150531-story.html 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.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Nitpick: the $4.9 billion figure is for Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity combined.
solomatov 11y ago
Also, the sum $4000 sounds too round for me, especially taking into account, that other numbers provided doesn't contain so many zeroes in them.
solomatov 11y ago
Actually I opened the source: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/09/23/add-it-average-american-family-pays-6000-year-subsidies-big-business 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.
legutierr 11y ago
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-american-family-pays-6000-year-subsidies-big-business http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/09/23/add-it-average-... https://www.whitehouse.gov/2014-taxreceipt 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.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  No it's not accurate. I mean hell, $7 of your $50k goes to welfare? That's 0.014%. In reality, depending on what you want to call welfare (republicans like to call everything welfare and pretend it's bankrupting the country in order to scale it down, for example, so you have wildly different definitions in the political spectrum) it's around 5-8% of GDP. So this is just laughably inaccurate. Defense spending of $250, in reality it's closer to $2k. Then there's the corporate subsidies, they're more interesting because they're not necessarily wrong. Perhaps this number is but in general they're very high, but not in the way people normally think about subsidies. I see numbers thrown around all the time with murky definitions and it's misleading. For example, the IMF did a study that showed $5.3 trillion in oil subsidies worldwide. Gigantic number, consider world GDP is $75 trillion, US a little under $18 t. Now I'm sympathetic to the study, agree with it, and think we should take that number seriously and do something about it. I also think it constitutes a form of subsidy. But it's a bit misleading to say this means we're all paying thousands of dollars to corporate subsidies on this basis from our actual paycheck. There are different forms of subsidies and there's value in not muddying the semantics too much. What the study measures are externalities that aren't priced in. A person dies in motorised traffic? You can combat it by pricing that into the price of oil. A climate change related natural disaster happens, or we have to pay for CO2 cleanup, or healthcare costs rise due to oil-industry fumes causing lung cancer somewhere, you can price all of that in. Not pricing that in is a form of subsidy, but it's not like we take thousands of dollars from our pay check and send it to the companies to support them, very little money goes to these companies, the issue is we don't extract enough from them that we should once we look at the damage they cause, and this is technically a subsidy. The IMF measures the missed revenue from taxing fossil fuels at a lower range than it should if it prices in all externalities. Yet I've seen renowned green energy pundits in my country (the Netherlands) talk about these $5.3 trillion subsidies as if we're sending that money to corporations every year. I'm completely on their side, yet I don't think this is helpful, there's too much misleading information thrown around.
bko 11y ago
People talk about "corporate subsidies" as though a corporate tax number was sent down from the heavens and any amount collected less than that number is somehow equivalent of taking tax payer dollars and sending them to shareholders. No one likes a complicated manipulated tax code that favors certain firms/industries, but equating a complicated tax code that sets a higher tax rate than is normally collected to transferring tax payer dollars to shareholders of corporations is dishonest.

rdtsc 11y ago

At the end of the day it boils down to that fact that the poor as a class, are easily abused and manipulated -- by governments, private entities, even the poor themselves. One of the most perverted ways they are abused is they are convinced to vote against their own interests. For example thinking back at Obama's healthcare reform and the fate of the single payer option vis-a-vis the "get your socialist government outta my Medicare" crowd. Even further up the line, gutting education also pretty much ensures a future crowd of uneducated easily manipulated crowds for the next generation to abuse and take advantage of. So the system is already set to self-perpetuate. As a side note, speaking of manipulating, a good example is always Bush Jr. using evangelicals in his campaigns in early 2000s. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/evangelicals/bushand.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/evangeli... I think that was a brilliant move to use them, because they were a lot of them (1), they were relatively wealthy (2), they were easily reached, as they already congregated in large clubs i.e. megachurches (3), they are easily brainwashed with the right words (4).

bko 11y ago
Why is it that when rich people vote against their self interest and vote to raise taxes, that's considered noble. But when poor people vote against their self interest and vote for the government to take less money from people other than them, they're being manipulated?
- rdtsc 11y ago
  I don't know, I haven't thought about their motivation and interest yet too much. But talking to a few of them in the past (one was worth probably $100m+) I undestand they want to pay more taxes to maintain infrastructure and and not push the poor too much over the edge. Prisons are already full, crime is high, inequality is high, enough kids are already starving. So it seem the more forward thinking of the wealthy can see the current course of action might not be end well for everyone. But I have a hard time believing that each poor person with less than a month in savings, working for some fast food chain, is making a rational decision voting against nationalized health care or rasing taxes, just in case they reach the American Dream, and become a successful owner of a small busininess who will be strangled and starved by high taxes from Uncle Sam when they do. One of the biggest lies is that the rich got the poor to think of themselves as not poor, but pre-wealthy. They are just a few hard working years ago from being Donald Trump, if they just worked a bit hard (because if they don't they are just a lazy and deserve it). So as such, they sure wouldn't want to vote against the interest of the future successful selves...