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"It’s quite different now. For many people in the United States, there’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, sometimes despair." It's because we've been pacifie

by jstalin 14y ago

"It’s quite different now. For many people in the United States, there’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, sometimes despair." It's because we've been pacified through handouts and the welfare state. There's no longer a need to think about working hard and getting out of the unemployment morass we're in. Government will take care of you! Food stamp spending is at all-time record levels. Millions more people have gone on "disability" since 2007. The number of people in the work force continues to decline. Participation rate in the workforce is at multi-decade lows. The government-created housing bubble has made job mobility much more difficult, and of course both personal and public debt levels have reached saturation. So, why not get unlimited student loans, get food stamps, get yourself declared to have a disability, and then gorge on all the benefits of being "poor" like a free cellphone, and reduced cost internet. We've turned into a nation of dependents!

knowtheory 14y ago
Unless you can a) point to numbers indicating that your claim is true, and more importantly b) justify how this isn't just a teeeeny tiiiiiiny drop in the bucket compared to defense spending, tax cuts and health care costs, your post is essentially irrelevant noise in the grander scheme of federal budget politics. And come to think of it, even if food stamp spending is at an all time high, isn't that consistent with the idea that the economy is fucked and suddenly there are a lot more families dependent on food stamps because of the inability of the labor market to bring down unemployment?
- jstalin 14y ago
  Food stamp usage breaking historical pattern of going down when joblesness decreases (and at an all time high): http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/food-stamps-keep-going-up-as-unemployment-falls-bgov-barometer.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/food-stamps-keep-go... Two Charts Exposing America's Record Shadow Welfare State - Disability going up dramatically: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/two-charts-exposing-americas-record-shadow-welfare-state http://www.zerohedge.com/news/two-charts-exposing-americas-r... Oh, and I never said I support gigantic amounts of defense spending. I'm talking about dependence, not federal spending or budgeting. You've diverted what I said to another topic.
  - dlokshin 14y ago
    On top of that, the US Gov now accounts for ~25% of wages in this country: http://cl.ly/2a0p1T3a1B0y1B08050g http://cl.ly/2a0p1T3a1B0y1B08050g
    - jbooth 14y ago
      And that figure's been on a downward trend for the last several years. Take out military and it's been on a downward trend for a decade.
tnuc 14y ago
Given that the US spends over half its budget on "defence" I really don't know where you are getting your ideas from. Maybe some numbers and a source?
- jstalin 14y ago
  Where did I support current or additional defense spending? Frankly, it's just another welfare scheme. Defense spending is largely a waste.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Maybe, but it's telling that you didn't mention it at all and instead focussed on blaming people on food stamps.
    - jstalin 14y ago
      It's telling of what exactly? That I didn't connect defense spending and dependence on handouts? You are reading more into what I'm saying than is there. Check your pre-conceived notions. And, AGAIN, where do I blame the people on food stamps? The system is the problem, not the people who take advantage of it.
      - jbooth 14y ago
        Food stamps are a drop in the bucket compared to defense spending. If you're just a nonpartisan who's concerned about the budget, rather than a limbaughbeckbot, one would expect you'd be approximately 1,000x as outraged about defense (in numerical terms) as you are about food stamps.
      - rhizome 14y ago
        It's telling that you choose to focus on moral issues, such as what you interpret as dependence, rather than the hard-numbers "this is what consumes the most tax dollars for the least benefit" of defense spending. Of course, "least benefit" is a value judgement, but the system, as you describe it, is actually concerned with maintaining the military and the financial industries much more than any idea of the country having its legs knocked out from under it by poor people. This is a fact, and is supportable by actual numbers, unlike your kicking of people while they're down.
jbooth 14y ago
jstalin? Really?
- crusso 14y ago
  Says jbooth? Irony much? :)
  - jbooth 14y ago
    jbooth is my name. jstalin's a guy who killed about as many people as Hitler.
lotides 14y ago
Time to turn off the talk radio, buddy. People can't get jobs that don't exist. The people on unemployment, disability or other government benefits didn't conspire to ruin the economy. They're just trying to feed their families and survive long enough to find work. If you're looking for someone to blame, look at the people that got rich while the rest of America got poor. The ones the benefited from this disaster are the same ones that caused it.
- jstalin 14y ago
  Did I say they conspired to ruin the economy? No. Did I say I blame them for the state of the economy? No. And I don't listen to talk radio. I'm blaming the excessive amount of debt in the system, both personal and public. It's crushing. Each additional dollar of public debt is having a negative real effect on the economy. Of course, the crushing level of bureaucracy and costs of running a small business are a big part of the problem as well. The economy is paralyzed by debt and regulatory uncertainty. If Japan can manage as a majority-services economy, we can too. Manufacturing doesn't make the world suddenly better.
zerostar07 14y ago
That isn't necessarily true. In general, some agree that the state should provide the basics, and as the centuries go by and the world gets richer, those basics become more and more. Reasonable welfare equals to higher productivity rather than laziness. If you are not convinced, look at the countries that provide the most in terms of welfare such as northern europe or japan and yet they are equally or more productive than the US.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
batista 14y ago
>It's because we've been pacified through handouts and the welfare state. I call BS. As far as welfare states go, the US has one of the smallest and less pervasive of any modern western country. Actually, it's like in that field you're living in the medieval ages. A "welfare state" with your health system, close to a million people in the streets and tens of millions eating with coupons, is not a welfare state, it's a joke. Nobody in his right mind would call your "food stamps" a welfare support that makes people "dependents". We would actually think of it as an incompetent, half-arsed mockery of a welfare system... more like charity than welfare.

by jstalin 14y ago

knowtheory 14y ago

Unless you can a) point to numbers indicating that your claim is true, and more importantly b) justify how this isn't just a teeeeny tiiiiiiny drop in the bucket compared to defense spending, tax cuts and health care costs, your post is essentially irrelevant noise in the grander scheme of federal budget politics. And come to think of it, even if food stamp spending is at an all time high, isn't that consistent with the idea that the economy is fucked and suddenly there are a lot more families dependent on food stamps because of the inability of the labor market to bring down unemployment?

jstalin 14y ago
Food stamp usage breaking historical pattern of going down when joblesness decreases (and at an all time high): http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/food-stamps-keep-going-up-as-unemployment-falls-bgov-barometer.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/food-stamps-keep-go... Two Charts Exposing America's Record Shadow Welfare State - Disability going up dramatically: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/two-charts-exposing-americas-record-shadow-welfare-state http://www.zerohedge.com/news/two-charts-exposing-americas-r... Oh, and I never said I support gigantic amounts of defense spending. I'm talking about dependence, not federal spending or budgeting. You've diverted what I said to another topic.
- dlokshin 14y ago
  On top of that, the US Gov now accounts for ~25% of wages in this country: http://cl.ly/2a0p1T3a1B0y1B08050g http://cl.ly/2a0p1T3a1B0y1B08050g
  - jbooth 14y ago
    And that figure's been on a downward trend for the last several years. Take out military and it's been on a downward trend for a decade.

tnuc 14y ago

Given that the US spends over half its budget on "defence" I really don't know where you are getting your ideas from. Maybe some numbers and a source?

jstalin 14y ago
Where did I support current or additional defense spending? Frankly, it's just another welfare scheme. Defense spending is largely a waste.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Maybe, but it's telling that you didn't mention it at all and instead focussed on blaming people on food stamps.
  - jstalin 14y ago
    It's telling of what exactly? That I didn't connect defense spending and dependence on handouts? You are reading more into what I'm saying than is there. Check your pre-conceived notions. And, AGAIN, where do I blame the people on food stamps? The system is the problem, not the people who take advantage of it.
    - jbooth 14y ago
      Food stamps are a drop in the bucket compared to defense spending. If you're just a nonpartisan who's concerned about the budget, rather than a limbaughbeckbot, one would expect you'd be approximately 1,000x as outraged about defense (in numerical terms) as you are about food stamps.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      It's telling that you choose to focus on moral issues, such as what you interpret as dependence, rather than the hard-numbers "this is what consumes the most tax dollars for the least benefit" of defense spending. Of course, "least benefit" is a value judgement, but the system, as you describe it, is actually concerned with maintaining the military and the financial industries much more than any idea of the country having its legs knocked out from under it by poor people. This is a fact, and is supportable by actual numbers, unlike your kicking of people while they're down.

jbooth 14y ago

jstalin? Really?

crusso 14y ago
Says jbooth? Irony much? :)
- jbooth 14y ago
  jbooth is my name. jstalin's a guy who killed about as many people as Hitler.

lotides 14y ago

Time to turn off the talk radio, buddy. People can't get jobs that don't exist. The people on unemployment, disability or other government benefits didn't conspire to ruin the economy. They're just trying to feed their families and survive long enough to find work. If you're looking for someone to blame, look at the people that got rich while the rest of America got poor. The ones the benefited from this disaster are the same ones that caused it.

jstalin 14y ago
Did I say they conspired to ruin the economy? No. Did I say I blame them for the state of the economy? No. And I don't listen to talk radio. I'm blaming the excessive amount of debt in the system, both personal and public. It's crushing. Each additional dollar of public debt is having a negative real effect on the economy. Of course, the crushing level of bureaucracy and costs of running a small business are a big part of the problem as well. The economy is paralyzed by debt and regulatory uncertainty. If Japan can manage as a majority-services economy, we can too. Manufacturing doesn't make the world suddenly better.

zerostar07 14y ago

That isn't necessarily true. In general, some agree that the state should provide the basics, and as the centuries go by and the world gets richer, those basics become more and more. Reasonable welfare equals to higher productivity rather than laziness. If you are not convinced, look at the countries that provide the most in terms of welfare such as northern europe or japan and yet they are equally or more productive than the US.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

batista 14y ago

>It's because we've been pacified through handouts and the welfare state. I call BS. As far as welfare states go, the US has one of the smallest and less pervasive of any modern western country. Actually, it's like in that field you're living in the medieval ages. A "welfare state" with your health system, close to a million people in the streets and tens of millions eating with coupons, is not a welfare state, it's a joke. Nobody in his right mind would call your "food stamps" a welfare support that makes people "dependents". We would actually think of it as an incompetent, half-arsed mockery of a welfare system... more like charity than welfare.