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I think OP's point is that if the US had a better social safety net, this problem wouldn't be as bad. So many people in the US - arguably still the world's mos

• deleted 6y ago
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• Frost1x 6y ago
  >...because their country just doesn't give a shit about them... To add insult to injury, every party involved that doesn't give a shit about them, yet benefits from not giving a shit about them, also pretends to give a shit about them. The entire "essential worker" hero ad campaign at the start of COVID really put a bad taste in my mouth. Few if any of the businesses that ran those ad campaigns actually cared about their workers or felt they were heroes (if they did, they'd treat them with basic human decency, which they don't). Instead, they treat them like garbage, lie to them, and lie to everyone else portraying that they somehow don't treat their workers like garbage. Modern corporate propoganda (that's what it is, no matter what you want to relabel it) is pretty disgusting, especially in the fact that it's successful. We've really lost our humanity in this system and it's some of the subjective yet arguably "good" or positive attributes of humanity.
  • sbarre 6y ago
    > Few if any of the businesses that ran those ad campaigns actually cared about their workers Agreed, but ultimately the responsibility to care for all citizens should fall on the government first. Anyone who lives in a country should feel supported and cared for by their government. That's literally why it exists. Employers should certainly care for their employees as well, but that should be an added benefit, not the primary safety net.
    • mushufasa 6y ago
      > Anyone who lives in a country should feel supported and cared for by their government. That's literally why it exists. This is the opposite of the libertarian / conservative philosophy, which is that government should have no role in people's lives and people should support themselves -- government's just a referee for disputes.
      • sbarre 6y ago
        And yet those same people still use the infrastructure, and benefit from the stability and security, that their government provides. So one could argue that it's an unrealistic "philosophy" that is just used to provide cover for said people's selfish bullshit.
        • sneak 6y ago
          There’s nothing selfish about wishing to be left alone, and not be forced to do things to which one does not consent, and not be forced to buy things which one does not want to buy. Also, when born into a system that forces you, on threat of violence, to participate in it, there is no peaceful alternative that permits an opt out, so saying that those people benefit (in your view) when they have no other option, is extremely disingenuous. Do people also benefit from the war on drugs being waged against them? There are lots of legitimate critiques of libertarianism. Neither the false dichotomy nor the ad hominem you offered are among them. Not everyone agrees that that particular form of stability and security that you seem to think is such a huge benefit is worth the cost: specifically, that every person alive in a certain region must be forced, on threat of violence, to pay and participate in that stability-providing system, even if they vehemently do not consent to such. Perhaps you value stability and security above all else, and think it’s a good deal. Others that do not, and consider the price (morally, in the legitimization of armed robbery, to say nothing of the dollar figure) too high, are not being selfish by having those values. Libertarianism is not the opposite of “socially interdependent”. It’s the opposite of “forced at the point of a gun”.
          • 6y ago
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > The entire "essential worker" hero ad campaign at the start of COVID really put a bad taste in my mouth. The US does the same with their military. Drape the flag over everything, trip over themselves thanking people for service, giving 10% military discounts and giving home loans with 3% down payments....but should we pay the armed forces a competitive wage? No. It’s even more cringe when all this service stuff is then extended to police and firefighters. As if there are two classes of people in the country, those sacrificing themselves and willingly accepting less money to “serve” their country, when it’s really just their only option because all the business left their town or they messed up in high school. I don’t ever want to be paid with “thanks” or “hero worship”. I’ll take the cash.
    • mkaic 6y ago
      Oddly enough, I’ve noticed this even down at my level as a teenager who worked as water-park lifeguard last summer. We had two months of rigorous training before we could even start work, and because the park I worked at was huge and very safety oriented, our job was actually very mentally and physically taxing, much more so than, say, that of a cashier. We were paid 50 cents above minimum wage, and it wasn’t until just recently that I realized what was going on: the park was leveraging the social status associated with being a guard in order to pay us much less than we deserved for such a demanding job. They substituted “hero worship” (like you mentioned) for the cash our labor was actually worth. I quit a month before the season ended and don’t intend to go back.
      • nickff 6y ago
        Some jobs have non-pecuniary benefits, such as social status or personal gratification; these mean that people are willing to do the work for less than they otherwise would (even to the point of making the position volunteer-only). I am not sure what someone 'deserves' for being a lifeguard, or any other job with substantial non-pecuniary benefits, but these things should be taken into account.
        • I-M-S 6y ago
          so an inverse compensating differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential
  • sneak 6y ago
    The task is essential. The specific person carrying out that task is not. The pay reflects the cost of completing the task.
  • ponker 6y ago
    The best summary of this was a Tweet I saw saying something like “I see a billboard that says I’m an essential worker and a paycheck that says I’m not.”
    • jquery 6y ago
      What was their paycheck?
      • ponker 6y ago
        Most likely, minimum wage
• Press2forEN 6y ago
  The social safety net has a number of problems. 1. It never seems to solve the problems it claims to address. When evidence against it is brought to bear, its advocates move the goal post. 2. There is never an established "end state." More and more areas of life magically become "rights" and then get added to its ever increasing responsibility. 3. It is commonly used as a means to buy votes and sow social dissent by convincing a receiving group that a productive group wants to take their livelihood away. 4. The US government is arguably not representative enough to be tasked with providing it. The nation is too large, the people are too divided, and the political system is too corrupt. 5. It relies on confiscation by the aforementioned unrepresentative entity. And those that never use it shoulder a disproportionate burden of its funding and implementation. The idea that a social safety net is a Universal Good Thing needs to be reevaluated.
  • harimau777 6y ago
    I haven't seen a viable alternative presented.
  • CPLX 6y ago
    > 1. It never seems to solve the problems it claims to address. When evidence against it is brought to bear, its advocates move the goal post. Sure it does. There are dozens of Western European countries where people do not go bankrupt due to medical debt, post-secondary education is free or affordable, homelessness is not a serious issue, and large portions of the population are not incarcerated. > 2. There is never an established "end state." More and more areas of life magically become "rights" and then get added to its ever increasing responsibility. Sure there is. Scandanavian countries, for the most part, have had a fairly undertstable steady-state relationship with their social safety nets for decades, with policy arguments mostly taking place on the margins. > 3. It is commonly used as a means to buy votes and sow social dissent by convincing a receiving group that a productive group wants to take their livelihood away. Creating government policy that is appealing to voters is the basis of democracy. > 4. The US government is arguably not representative enough to be tasked with providing it. The nation is too large, the people are too divided, and the political system is too corrupt. Sure. But it's probably worth trying to change that right? > 5. It relies on confiscation by the aforementioned unrepresentative entity. And those that never use it shoulder a disproportionate burden of its funding and implementation. The idea that a social safety net is a Universal Good Thing needs to be reevaluated. Yes, it requires those who amass a disproportionate amount of the society's financial resources to shoulder a disproportionate financial burden of maintaining that society. They're still doing pretty well, go to Geneva sometime and hang out with rich people and see for yourself.
• tomschlick 6y ago
  Did you ever stop and think that the US is the most prosperous because of that instead of in spite of it? Forcing your people to not rely on the government (really just everyone else) is a good thing. The US is very individualistic which leads to the entrepreneurial spirit. That obviously has pros and cons but it has lead to pretty strong growth and economy.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Did you ever stop to think that keeping people on the precipice of ruin so that they have little negotiating power for their wages is what causes 10% to 20% of the US to be “prosperous”, but not the rest? Not to mention the myriad other reasons for success in the US, such as being the only developed nation with large resource stores left intact after WW2? Not to discount the very important work of US scientists and engineers who objectively did make great progress, but to say that the nation’s success depends on not helping its most vulnerable is ridiculous.
    • afarrell 6y ago
      > with large resource stores left intact after WW2? Also that the largest sea empire in the world spent that war desperately buying stuff from us.
    • refurb 6y ago
      I keep hearing “no safety net” and “precipice I’d ruin” yet social programs are the majority of the federal gov’t spending.
      • lotsofpulp 6y ago
        That’s how broken the safety net programs are, and on purpose. There are so many stipulations, red tape, inconsistencies, and volatility involved that people in the US have no reason to trust them. The government (taxpayers) are always looking for an excuse to cut benefits.
        • 6y ago
• refurb 6y ago
  The gov’t gave every unemployed person $600/week on top of unemployment benefits, resulting in some people getting paid more than their old job. During the 2008 crisis, unemployment benefits were extended to 2 years. Seems like a pretty good “safety net”?
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  • cure 6y ago
    > Seems like a pretty good “safety net”? Except if you haven't been able to get unemployment because, you were a contractor, say a driver for Uber. Except for the whole "no health care" part. Except for the fact that that $600/week is gone now and you're among the millions of people who are still unemployed. Except if you weren't able to get unemployment because your state's unemployment office has terrible IT problems and they still haven't caught up. No, this isn't a pretty good "safety net".
    • refurb 6y ago
      Healthcare is true. But the govt is already planning to replace the $600. The $600 is gone but employment remains. Some people have had IT issues, but most are getting unemployment. The contractor issue (except healthcare) is no different than other countries.
      • gorbachev 6y ago
        Germany gives contractors/freelancers unemployment benefits.
• DamnYuppie 6y ago
  They live on the precipice of ruin not because of their country but because of the choice that they make. If you are high school educated, do not have children until you are married, and have a any level of job it is nearly impossible to be poor in the US. The above account for only 4% of all recipients of food stamps. The other 96% are people who don't want to work who are continually unemployed, have multiple children outside of wedlock yet want the same quality of life as everyone else. Decisions have consequences and I don't feel I should have to continually pay more so a minority of the population can have nice things regardless of the choices they made!
  • dennis_jeeves 6y ago
    As an extension to what you said, poverty can actually be ended in a generation or so. All that the poor have to do is not to have any children. Right now since the vast majority of people on welfare have children, the growth of poverty is actually encouraged.