7 ms·

>I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and b

>I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thing to be able to live a frugal life and still be healthy enough. Why do you think that you should have the right to live off of other people's work? Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that came out of other people's paychecks.

gambiting 10y ago
What he thinks is irrelevant. The system is in place to allow people without jobs to survive. We either have to have that, or guarantee that everyone has a job - I come from a former communist republic that tried to do the later, it's not pretty. I would much rather live in a country that let's him live off welfare than in a country that tries to shove a job everyone's throat.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  I'm not against welfare. I was responding to his assertion that he feels no obligation to work, even if jobs are available.
  - Eupolemos 10y ago
    But in reality there's more to it, right? Yes, jobs are available, but they also get filled quickly. There's no shortage. The unemployed can out-bid each other in a "how-low-can-you-go" competition, but that just leads to working poor.
  - GFischer 10y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but I believe it didn't come across that way (it's hard to gauge what you tried to convey across the Internet sometimes).
  - gcheong 10y ago
    But isn't this idea that work is some kind of moral obligation to society exactly the problem if it's true that work is going to disappear? Do you think his contribution to society is zero or negative simply because he doesn't have a job? Perhaps it's just easier to measure if you have a job what your relative contribution to society is because you can place a dollar value on it.
CalRobert 10y ago
" Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that came out of other people's paychecks." That's true, but I increasingly don't mind. It's also money that came from your own paycheck if you were a high earner in the past.
- twistedpair 10y ago
  It's also the money that subsidizes people to work the jobs that corporations don't pay enough wages to live off of (e.g. Wal-Mart 'Associates'). Everyone wants goods produced as cheaply as possible, but doesn't want to pay their producers living wages.
IanDrake 10y ago
Judging by the down votes you must be wrong. Welfare is indeed fairy money.
wott 10y ago
For example, because half of other people's work is bullshit. Or because a third of other people's work output is used to take them from home to work. Or because the amount on the paycheck is totally unrelated to the value a worker produces. Or because a quarter of other people's work is not about creating value, but about destroying it and driving all of us always faster towards a catastrophe. In short, because most of world organised around work is nonsense. So getting a bit of money to live poorly without work is not any more nonsensical. That's a way to see it.
- jsmith0295 10y ago
  So why not try and fix the mismatch between the paycheck and the value produced by the worker rather than just abandoning the idea of producing any value at all? Even if someone is paid 10% of what they produce, I'd rather have them doing that for 40 hours a week than doing nothing and collecting a welfare check.
  - freshhawk 10y ago
    Because the people with a lot of power are actively opposed to any fix? A huge number of people want this mismatch to be fixed, but are wise enough to know they have zero ability to do anything about it. We're in the midst of discovering just how useless "consciousness raising" slacktivist campaigns are, and that was basically the last hope for being able to contribute to a solution for a lot of people.
  - sova 10y ago
    study: "I" would rather have "them" ... in discussions like this we must exchange perspectives with all citizens. From the highest to the lowest. Even to the lowliest we must see that their fundamental needs are the same.
Pica_soO 10y ago
Because he is no longer living on the back of other people. He is living on the back of robots and machinery. Hating him for once personal live style choices (aka salary-man) in a world that that discards those daily by the dozen- seems- slightly envious?
Asooka 10y ago
Why do you think that you have the right to own money? Those money aren't fairy money, they're money that came out of a government mint. You only have a natural right to the things that you make with your hands. Money that's handed to you is not a right, it's a privilege.
- jomohn 10y ago
  but if i trade my time for money, then the money isn't handed to me by privilege.
PrimalDual 10y ago
So right now it comes from other people's paycheck but does it have to? Why don't rich countries like the US, Switzerland or Japan not print money to cover their spending? Inflation is not the problem it used to be and I actually think it's a much better measure of the economy's capacity than unemployment. Would inflation of 4% be that bad for the public and financial system anyways? In the US at least I strongly oppose tax-based welfare because I percieve it as a rigged system where the wealthy can avoid paying their fair share through loop holes and classifying their income differently than mine. But inflation in a sense is unavoidable and progressive since the more money you have the more you lose to inflation if you don't invest it. This is especially true if the cause of inflation is labor scarcity and not some other key resource like oil.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  >Why don't rich countries like the US, Switzerland or Japan not print money to cover their spending? Printing money is equivalent to a tax on all US dollar holdings. The value of the printed money is subtracted from everyone else's holdings by inflation. Doing this excessively, e.g. to fund the entire public sector, would cause an inflationary spiral, as everyone tries to get rid of their rapidly-devaluing dollars as quickly as possible.
- aianus 10y ago
  The rich are even more capable of evading inflation than they are evading taxes. I'm sure Warren Buffet has proportionally less of his money in cash than I do.
  - jomohn 10y ago
    You have every option to store your wealth in other assets than USD.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  Because if you continue printing money the inflation doesn't stop growing at some point. This is Econ 101.
jokoon 10y ago
Taxes are written in the law, and I'm not obligated to work a job by law. So your argument is solely a moral one. Jobs are mostly a first served problem or the result of privilege: education, network, etc.
- jomohn 10y ago
  >Jobs are mostly a first served problem or the result of privilege. No they aren't, the easiest way to get a job is to get really good at something.

gambiting 10y ago

What he thinks is irrelevant. The system is in place to allow people without jobs to survive. We either have to have that, or guarantee that everyone has a job - I come from a former communist republic that tried to do the later, it's not pretty. I would much rather live in a country that let's him live off welfare than in a country that tries to shove a job everyone's throat.

marcoperaza 10y ago
I'm not against welfare. I was responding to his assertion that he feels no obligation to work, even if jobs are available.
- Eupolemos 10y ago
  But in reality there's more to it, right? Yes, jobs are available, but they also get filled quickly. There's no shortage. The unemployed can out-bid each other in a "how-low-can-you-go" competition, but that just leads to working poor.
- GFischer 10y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but I believe it didn't come across that way (it's hard to gauge what you tried to convey across the Internet sometimes).
- gcheong 10y ago
  But isn't this idea that work is some kind of moral obligation to society exactly the problem if it's true that work is going to disappear? Do you think his contribution to society is zero or negative simply because he doesn't have a job? Perhaps it's just easier to measure if you have a job what your relative contribution to society is because you can place a dollar value on it.

CalRobert 10y ago

" Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that came out of other people's paychecks." That's true, but I increasingly don't mind. It's also money that came from your own paycheck if you were a high earner in the past.

twistedpair 10y ago
It's also the money that subsidizes people to work the jobs that corporations don't pay enough wages to live off of (e.g. Wal-Mart 'Associates'). Everyone wants goods produced as cheaply as possible, but doesn't want to pay their producers living wages.

IanDrake 10y ago

Judging by the down votes you must be wrong. Welfare is indeed fairy money.

wott 10y ago

For example, because half of other people's work is bullshit. Or because a third of other people's work output is used to take them from home to work. Or because the amount on the paycheck is totally unrelated to the value a worker produces. Or because a quarter of other people's work is not about creating value, but about destroying it and driving all of us always faster towards a catastrophe. In short, because most of world organised around work is nonsense. So getting a bit of money to live poorly without work is not any more nonsensical. That's a way to see it.

jsmith0295 10y ago
So why not try and fix the mismatch between the paycheck and the value produced by the worker rather than just abandoning the idea of producing any value at all? Even if someone is paid 10% of what they produce, I'd rather have them doing that for 40 hours a week than doing nothing and collecting a welfare check.
- freshhawk 10y ago
  Because the people with a lot of power are actively opposed to any fix? A huge number of people want this mismatch to be fixed, but are wise enough to know they have zero ability to do anything about it. We're in the midst of discovering just how useless "consciousness raising" slacktivist campaigns are, and that was basically the last hope for being able to contribute to a solution for a lot of people.
- sova 10y ago
  study: "I" would rather have "them" ... in discussions like this we must exchange perspectives with all citizens. From the highest to the lowest. Even to the lowliest we must see that their fundamental needs are the same.

Pica_soO 10y ago

Because he is no longer living on the back of other people. He is living on the back of robots and machinery. Hating him for once personal live style choices (aka salary-man) in a world that that discards those daily by the dozen- seems- slightly envious?

Asooka 10y ago

Why do you think that you have the right to own money? Those money aren't fairy money, they're money that came out of a government mint. You only have a natural right to the things that you make with your hands. Money that's handed to you is not a right, it's a privilege.

jomohn 10y ago
but if i trade my time for money, then the money isn't handed to me by privilege.

PrimalDual 10y ago

So right now it comes from other people's paycheck but does it have to? Why don't rich countries like the US, Switzerland or Japan not print money to cover their spending? Inflation is not the problem it used to be and I actually think it's a much better measure of the economy's capacity than unemployment. Would inflation of 4% be that bad for the public and financial system anyways? In the US at least I strongly oppose tax-based welfare because I percieve it as a rigged system where the wealthy can avoid paying their fair share through loop holes and classifying their income differently than mine. But inflation in a sense is unavoidable and progressive since the more money you have the more you lose to inflation if you don't invest it. This is especially true if the cause of inflation is labor scarcity and not some other key resource like oil.

marcoperaza 10y ago
>Why don't rich countries like the US, Switzerland or Japan not print money to cover their spending? Printing money is equivalent to a tax on all US dollar holdings. The value of the printed money is subtracted from everyone else's holdings by inflation. Doing this excessively, e.g. to fund the entire public sector, would cause an inflationary spiral, as everyone tries to get rid of their rapidly-devaluing dollars as quickly as possible.
aianus 10y ago
The rich are even more capable of evading inflation than they are evading taxes. I'm sure Warren Buffet has proportionally less of his money in cash than I do.
- jomohn 10y ago
  You have every option to store your wealth in other assets than USD.
mixedCase 10y ago
Because if you continue printing money the inflation doesn't stop growing at some point. This is Econ 101.

jokoon 10y ago

Taxes are written in the law, and I'm not obligated to work a job by law. So your argument is solely a moral one. Jobs are mostly a first served problem or the result of privilege: education, network, etc.

jomohn 10y ago
>Jobs are mostly a first served problem or the result of privilege. No they aren't, the easiest way to get a job is to get really good at something.