6 ms·

Yeah. That reality is a major reason for my progressive politics. Plus the fact that my parents both grew up poor, obviously through no fault of their own, an

by earl 17y ago

Yeah. That reality is a major reason for my progressive politics. Plus the fact that my parents both grew up poor, obviously through no fault of their own, and I think a rich nation should do more to help it's poorest.

run4yourlives 17y ago
It should do more to help its poorest succeed, but I draw the line at "handouts" in the strictest sense. I'm from Canada, so you can guess that my politics are probably a little further down the progression line than most Americans. It's important though that we teach people to fish along with simply feeding them.
- j_baker 17y ago
  Believe me, the poor in the US don't get "handouts." To get foodstamps or other welfare, the poor usually have to work ridiculous hours. And the money you get from being on welfare just isn't enough. I'd rather see more legislation to ensure that people get paid enough money to survive a normal life than more handouts that just make them more dependent on the government.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    Oh I'm not suggesting they do, far from it. I wanted to temper my comment though because the situation in Canada is much different. I think we do a pretty good job up here of making sure most people don't fall through the cracks. Most of our poor are addicted to something, or native (let's not go there). It's easier to break the cycle in this country, although that isn't saying that it is easy. Life is a lot rougher in the US if you're poor, and I realize that.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I think a rich nation should do more to help it's poorest I'm trying not to sound flip, but I challenge you to a thought experiment -- perhaps with real money, if you like. Take some of your own money. Go find a poor person. Use your money to make them less poor. It's easy, really. If the nation can do it, surely you or I could do it as well, right? The goal of this experiment is to take away lofty ideals and ask practical questions: just what are we supposed to do that is going to help? Just what really helps and does not hurt poor people? So pick a strategy and pay for it. Let's agree to come back in three years and see how they are doing. You'll find that there are only three cases: 1) the person is poor because they continue to make poor choices, perhaps due to addiction, mental capacity, or emotional issues, 2) the person is temporarily poor due to circumstances outside of their control and is quite able to get ahead in the world if given time and left alone, 3) the person is somehow trapped by circumstances outside of their control which will not go away: medical bills, bad spouse, etc. #1 and #3 aren't going anywhere -- by definition they have chronic issues which money will not fix. No amount of mental therapy is going to make a drug addict into a banker: recidivism for drug addiction is around 95%. No amount of money is going to take the wife of a crack addict wife-beater and turn her family into Oprah's. For #2, those guys are going to do well anyway. Sure, if you want to lend a helping hand to make yourself feel better, go for it. But don't kid yourself that you're the one making the difference. The difference comes from inside, not from outside. I'm not saying don't help people. I'm saying that lofty, praiseworthy feel-good rhetoric does not fix a damn thing. Instead everybody just smiles and nods and agrees to spend money. If you or I have a hell of a time fixing one poor person, with direct one-on-one involvement, it is completely ludicrous to expect an impersonal government to do it for us. It's also a lazy man's morality -- I'd like to help people today, but I'd rather write a check (or even better, make the rich guy down the street write a huge check) and just go take care of it, okay?
- noonespecial 17y ago
  Whenever tax and "helping the poor" comes up, the argument always seems to degrade to higher taxes <-> bigger welfare checks. Never underestimate the power of one well placed community center. I know guys who have had the entire course of their lives altered by one mentor at one afterschool program. A lifetime of welfare checks could not have done so much.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I think you're changing the subject. As a participant in this thought experiment, you can (and should) use whatever resources you might have available. If volunteering at a community center is the thing, then you would go down there and do that. The question is: given whatever you want, what would you practically do? I'll touched on the two follow-up questions, but they weren't the point 1) if you've got an answer, why aren't you doing that right now? and 2) do you feel it is moral to take your best guess for fixing poverty and push it on the rest of us? Would you mandate community center service, for instance, or do you think writing a check for somebody working at a community center has the same effect as somebody who has a life purpose for doing it? (and how would you tell the difference? What if there's simply not enough people who really care about working at community centers? What then?) Those are great follow-ups, and the conversation should continue along those lines, but really, the point was what practically was supposed to make a difference if you personally had to do it. Not some generalities about some program that looked good on 60 minutes. What you would go do right now to make one person not poor. There's Bob. Bob is poor. Go make him not poor.
    - Retric 17y ago
      Not all poor people are poor for the same reason suggesting any one solution would work in all cases is stupid. I have helped several people become less "poor" by: 1) Teaching money management skills. The payback for a poor person investing 20$ to avoid a late fee can be huge. Poor people are so used the "fees" that it often quietly crushes them. 2) Suggesting a change of vocation. Not all low skill jobs pay crap. 3) Loaning money for an unexpected expense that was going to cost someone their new job. Their pay bump was going to cover the cost but they need the money before they could get to work... 4) Convincing someone to stay on Methadone. PS: Ok, in a thought experiment I guess you could hand them a million a week which would solve most peoples problems, but that does not really scale.
bokonist 17y ago
I was a progressive until I discovered that the progressive movement caused many of the worst problems affecting the poor in America. Intentions are not the same as results.
- kiddo 17y ago
  Like what?
  - bokonist 17y ago
    1) Read "Gang Leader for a day" or watch the Wire and then compare it to a first hand account of the slums of the 1900s. We are richer now thanks to technology. But the pathologies and decay of the slums is much, much worse. The progressive movement replaced a highly functional system of private and city government charity with a bureaucratic system that creates dependency, has no interest in actually solving the problems of the people it serves, and leaves housing projects to rot away. 2) Credentialism. From the Pendleton Civil Service Act to laws giving monopoly rights of practicing medicine to the AMA guild, the progressive movement towards credentialism gave government subsidies and monopolies to a class of people who could pass the civil service exam. These artificial barriers to entry result in a direct transfer of funds from the poor and working class to the college educated elite. For one example of many: http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html 3) The Fed/Bretton Woods/Fiat currency. The progressive movement turned our financial system from a bottom up system (loans and banking happened at a community level) to a top down system ( all banking originates out of Fed guarantees and a government printed currency). This has resulted in insane profits for Wall St. At the same time, because the USD is the reserve currency of the world, the U.S. exports dollars, and then gets back real goods at a very cheap price. This is great for the civil service and for Wall St. But it sucks for those in manufacturing jobs, as they cannot compete when the currency is artificially priced so high. 4) Griggs Supreme Court case. The Griggs case basically banned the use of IQ tests by employers. So now bright young kids must spend lots of money on a 4 year long IQ test proxy, rather than getting a job directly. 5) Taxes. Overall tax burden has increased enormously since the early 1900's, even on the working classes. The working class has by no means received a corresponding increase in benefits. For example, poor people must now pay heavy education taxes. This is despite that after seventy years of massively increased taxes and longer hours at school, rates of vocab and numeracy have been flat (http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-make-you-smarter-349 http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-... ). The ROI on this education spending was zero. Yet we all continue to pay. Worse, progressive judges in the 1970 eliminated the ability of teachers to effectively discipline students. Now are schools have become Lord of the Flies hell holes, with the inner city schools being the worst. Taxes on the rich are bad for the poor too, if the government does not use the money any more effectively than the rich do ( as is often the case). The rich often invest in charity ( like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates or Buffet), or reinvest in companies and growth ( like Paul Graham or Marc Andressen). Either way, it increases the prosperity of the nation much more than government spending has. 6) Lax crime policies of the late 60's were primarily responsible for the dramatic increase in crime. This crime hit poor people the worst. It also drove the middle class, and the jobs, out of the inner cities. 7) Immigration. Whatever the other merits of immigration may be, it no doubt drives down the price of low skilled labor. Thus it is bad from the point of view of the American poor and working class. 8) Democracy promotion abroad. The U.S. has had the insane idea that simply by forcing elections in countries with 20% literacy rates, no judicial system, no institutions, no heritage of civic participation, and highly combustible tribal relations, that these countries would magically turn into replicas of America. In reality, the result has been civil war, coups, bad government, and corruption. U.S. imposed anti-imperialism and democracy promotion has been an unmitigated disaster for the third world. Read this article for one example, but there are many, many more: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country-that-used-to-exist.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country... 9) The interstate highway system. Created by progressives, it has increased the cost of living for everyone.

by earl 17y ago

run4yourlives 17y ago

It should do more to help its poorest succeed, but I draw the line at "handouts" in the strictest sense. I'm from Canada, so you can guess that my politics are probably a little further down the progression line than most Americans. It's important though that we teach people to fish along with simply feeding them.

j_baker 17y ago
Believe me, the poor in the US don't get "handouts." To get foodstamps or other welfare, the poor usually have to work ridiculous hours. And the money you get from being on welfare just isn't enough. I'd rather see more legislation to ensure that people get paid enough money to survive a normal life than more handouts that just make them more dependent on the government.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  Oh I'm not suggesting they do, far from it. I wanted to temper my comment though because the situation in Canada is much different. I think we do a pretty good job up here of making sure most people don't fall through the cracks. Most of our poor are addicted to something, or native (let's not go there). It's easier to break the cycle in this country, although that isn't saying that it is easy. Life is a lot rougher in the US if you're poor, and I realize that.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I think a rich nation should do more to help it's poorest I'm trying not to sound flip, but I challenge you to a thought experiment -- perhaps with real money, if you like. Take some of your own money. Go find a poor person. Use your money to make them less poor. It's easy, really. If the nation can do it, surely you or I could do it as well, right? The goal of this experiment is to take away lofty ideals and ask practical questions: just what are we supposed to do that is going to help? Just what really helps and does not hurt poor people? So pick a strategy and pay for it. Let's agree to come back in three years and see how they are doing. You'll find that there are only three cases: 1) the person is poor because they continue to make poor choices, perhaps due to addiction, mental capacity, or emotional issues, 2) the person is temporarily poor due to circumstances outside of their control and is quite able to get ahead in the world if given time and left alone, 3) the person is somehow trapped by circumstances outside of their control which will not go away: medical bills, bad spouse, etc. #1 and #3 aren't going anywhere -- by definition they have chronic issues which money will not fix. No amount of mental therapy is going to make a drug addict into a banker: recidivism for drug addiction is around 95%. No amount of money is going to take the wife of a crack addict wife-beater and turn her family into Oprah's. For #2, those guys are going to do well anyway. Sure, if you want to lend a helping hand to make yourself feel better, go for it. But don't kid yourself that you're the one making the difference. The difference comes from inside, not from outside. I'm not saying don't help people. I'm saying that lofty, praiseworthy feel-good rhetoric does not fix a damn thing. Instead everybody just smiles and nods and agrees to spend money. If you or I have a hell of a time fixing one poor person, with direct one-on-one involvement, it is completely ludicrous to expect an impersonal government to do it for us. It's also a lazy man's morality -- I'd like to help people today, but I'd rather write a check (or even better, make the rich guy down the street write a huge check) and just go take care of it, okay?

noonespecial 17y ago
Whenever tax and "helping the poor" comes up, the argument always seems to degrade to higher taxes <-> bigger welfare checks. Never underestimate the power of one well placed community center. I know guys who have had the entire course of their lives altered by one mentor at one afterschool program. A lifetime of welfare checks could not have done so much.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  I think you're changing the subject. As a participant in this thought experiment, you can (and should) use whatever resources you might have available. If volunteering at a community center is the thing, then you would go down there and do that. The question is: given whatever you want, what would you practically do? I'll touched on the two follow-up questions, but they weren't the point 1) if you've got an answer, why aren't you doing that right now? and 2) do you feel it is moral to take your best guess for fixing poverty and push it on the rest of us? Would you mandate community center service, for instance, or do you think writing a check for somebody working at a community center has the same effect as somebody who has a life purpose for doing it? (and how would you tell the difference? What if there's simply not enough people who really care about working at community centers? What then?) Those are great follow-ups, and the conversation should continue along those lines, but really, the point was what practically was supposed to make a difference if you personally had to do it. Not some generalities about some program that looked good on 60 minutes. What you would go do right now to make one person not poor. There's Bob. Bob is poor. Go make him not poor.
  - Retric 17y ago
    Not all poor people are poor for the same reason suggesting any one solution would work in all cases is stupid. I have helped several people become less "poor" by: 1) Teaching money management skills. The payback for a poor person investing 20$ to avoid a late fee can be huge. Poor people are so used the "fees" that it often quietly crushes them. 2) Suggesting a change of vocation. Not all low skill jobs pay crap. 3) Loaning money for an unexpected expense that was going to cost someone their new job. Their pay bump was going to cover the cost but they need the money before they could get to work... 4) Convincing someone to stay on Methadone. PS: Ok, in a thought experiment I guess you could hand them a million a week which would solve most peoples problems, but that does not really scale.

bokonist 17y ago

I was a progressive until I discovered that the progressive movement caused many of the worst problems affecting the poor in America. Intentions are not the same as results.

kiddo 17y ago
Like what?
- bokonist 17y ago
  1) Read "Gang Leader for a day" or watch the Wire and then compare it to a first hand account of the slums of the 1900s. We are richer now thanks to technology. But the pathologies and decay of the slums is much, much worse. The progressive movement replaced a highly functional system of private and city government charity with a bureaucratic system that creates dependency, has no interest in actually solving the problems of the people it serves, and leaves housing projects to rot away. 2) Credentialism. From the Pendleton Civil Service Act to laws giving monopoly rights of practicing medicine to the AMA guild, the progressive movement towards credentialism gave government subsidies and monopolies to a class of people who could pass the civil service exam. These artificial barriers to entry result in a direct transfer of funds from the poor and working class to the college educated elite. For one example of many: http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html 3) The Fed/Bretton Woods/Fiat currency. The progressive movement turned our financial system from a bottom up system (loans and banking happened at a community level) to a top down system ( all banking originates out of Fed guarantees and a government printed currency). This has resulted in insane profits for Wall St. At the same time, because the USD is the reserve currency of the world, the U.S. exports dollars, and then gets back real goods at a very cheap price. This is great for the civil service and for Wall St. But it sucks for those in manufacturing jobs, as they cannot compete when the currency is artificially priced so high. 4) Griggs Supreme Court case. The Griggs case basically banned the use of IQ tests by employers. So now bright young kids must spend lots of money on a 4 year long IQ test proxy, rather than getting a job directly. 5) Taxes. Overall tax burden has increased enormously since the early 1900's, even on the working classes. The working class has by no means received a corresponding increase in benefits. For example, poor people must now pay heavy education taxes. This is despite that after seventy years of massively increased taxes and longer hours at school, rates of vocab and numeracy have been flat (http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-make-you-smarter-349 http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-... ). The ROI on this education spending was zero. Yet we all continue to pay. Worse, progressive judges in the 1970 eliminated the ability of teachers to effectively discipline students. Now are schools have become Lord of the Flies hell holes, with the inner city schools being the worst. Taxes on the rich are bad for the poor too, if the government does not use the money any more effectively than the rich do ( as is often the case). The rich often invest in charity ( like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates or Buffet), or reinvest in companies and growth ( like Paul Graham or Marc Andressen). Either way, it increases the prosperity of the nation much more than government spending has. 6) Lax crime policies of the late 60's were primarily responsible for the dramatic increase in crime. This crime hit poor people the worst. It also drove the middle class, and the jobs, out of the inner cities. 7) Immigration. Whatever the other merits of immigration may be, it no doubt drives down the price of low skilled labor. Thus it is bad from the point of view of the American poor and working class. 8) Democracy promotion abroad. The U.S. has had the insane idea that simply by forcing elections in countries with 20% literacy rates, no judicial system, no institutions, no heritage of civic participation, and highly combustible tribal relations, that these countries would magically turn into replicas of America. In reality, the result has been civil war, coups, bad government, and corruption. U.S. imposed anti-imperialism and democracy promotion has been an unmitigated disaster for the third world. Read this article for one example, but there are many, many more: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country-that-used-to-exist.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country... 9) The interstate highway system. Created by progressives, it has increased the cost of living for everyone.