Posted                   

quote:

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
Merlin--

Maybe you honestly don't know this, but most unemployed people, including those on welfare, ALREADY want to work, and want a better life.

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But sometimes there is no work available. And the deck can be heavily stacked against someone:

--racial inequities;

--lack of appropriate clothing;

--lack of transportation--not just no car, but no money for bus, and inadequate or no bus service;

--lack of child care;

--lack of education and/or education was in a very underfunded school where most students are just written off;

--lack of enough food (and nutritious food) to fuel you through the workday, and possible lack of a lunch to bring;

--growing up in a community where all of the above is so entrenched and people are so squished down that it's nearly impossible to even imagine anything better, let alone figure out how to try to get it, or actually have someone take you seriously enough to employ you, and you may have never seen anyone from your community make it;

--the impressions, stereotypes, and prejudices in other people's minds;

and many other things.

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Merlin, FWIW, many of your posts sound like you don't know or believe any of this...and many other posts sound you don't really care. Now, maybe you really don't know, and maybe you're just trying to work out something within your understanding of economics.

But people's reactions to your posts aren't coming out of the blue.

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
...
Tell me just how the city of Detroit's gonna put 30% of the population to work, even in exchange for services, when a third of the land is vacant - meaning no property taxes are being paid. The enclave city of Highland Park has finally been able to restore their police and fire departments - they were without those for several years due to bankruptcy. How would Highland Park have put unemployed citizens to work if it couldn't even keep its own police and firefighters employed?

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Our population dropped from 2 million in the '50s to less than 1 million by 2000. There's no market fix for that.

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Originally posted by sabine:
The inability to pay for adequate child care (or the lack of quality lo-cost child care) is one of the important obstacles for people going back to work where I live.

So is a public transportation system that doesn't cover huge areas of the city, doesn't run very often, and of course costs money to ride. Some people have to ride 3 buses to get to work, taking 2 hours each way. That's a 4-hour commute each day. (Ditto for the hospital--I met a woman on the bus once who was in labor, couldn't afford to call an ambulance and had to change buses twice to get to the public hospital.)

Now, let's say a person already has the children when s/he has to go on welfare (to stop a tangent about who should or shouldn't have children....) and then gets a minimum wage job (or slightly higher) and that job runs past the time the child care places close and the buses stop running (assuming that minimum wage would pay for child care and transportation).

How do you propose such a person advance out of dependence on welfare if they can't get to work, have a monumental commute or have no way to care for their child while they are there?

Most people who are trying to get off welfare are not going to be fast tracked into well paying jobs with on-site child care or relatives who can take on the job. I don't care if the film The Pursuit of Happyness makes it appear that anyone can do it....

...most people can't. I've spent most of my professional life trying to help people figure this all out, and the statistics are disheartening.

sabine

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Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Well then, Merlin, why don't you take some venture capital and start up a business or two on vacant Detroit land?

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Posted                   

quote:

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Originally posted by sabine:
...
How do you propose such a person advance out of dependence on welfare if they can't get to work, have a monumental commute or have no way to care for their child while they are there?

Most people who are trying to get off welfare are not going to be fast tracked into well paying jobs with on-site child care or relatives who can take on the job. I don't care if the film The Pursuit of Happyness makes it appear that anyone can do it....

...most people can't. I've spent most of my professional life trying to help people figure this all out, and the statistics are disheartening.

sabine

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
Here's an interesting analysis of the 10th Amendment stuff:

"Tentherism"

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
Here's an interesting analysis of the 10th Amendment stuff:

"Tentherism"

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Wonder if tenthers realize only 17 states can pay their own bills without federal help?

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Hmm... is paying states' bills a power expressly given the federal gov't in the Constitution?

--------------------
I reserve the right to change my mind.

My article on the Virgin of Vladimir

Posted                      

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Originally posted by sabine:
Merlin, I admire your willingness to brainstorm strategies to change the way the governments (federal, state, local) deal with a variety of issues.

It's this very willingness to actually try to come up with scenarios that seems to be absent with many of the tea party folks I know or have heard. They seem to have some sort of generalized anger and anxiety (culture of fear?) that doesn't allow them to do more than call people out and engage in shouting matches....

Polarization is the bane of problem solving.

sabine

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Originally posted by Hawk:

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
I repeat: capitalism is the key to prosperity because it allows self-interested humans to earn and keep private property without hinderment. Get capitalism booming in Mexico and the crime bosses and gangs will lose their momentum: very few people turn to crime when legitimate opportunities to advance are on every hand -- as in the heyday of US expansionism before the Great Depression; which didn't happen overnight; the 20's were riddled with organized crime because the economy was already tanking; whereas after the 2WW the revived capitalist economy stabilized everything and organized crime faded proportionally....

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Except none of that is true is it. You may be able to rewrite history in your own head but don’t expect anyone else to accept it. A strong economy has no effect on organized crime, only desperation crime. Firstly the 20’s were a period of incredible economic boom, not a tanking economy. They weren’t called the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and the ‘Golden Twenties’ for nothing. And the mafia and gangs in America were powerful throughout the twentieth century and even now – haven’t you ever seen Sopranos? Or Godfather, Casino or Goodfellas. They may be fictional representations but they are all based on real life and all are set long after WW2. In fact from what I understand, the levels of organized crime have only increased after WW2, not decreased. And this was nothing to do with the economy either. It was mainly to do with the ease of access to drugs. You don’t appear to have a clue about this subject.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by churchgeek:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
Here's an interesting analysis of the 10th Amendment stuff:

"Tentherism"

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Wonder if tenthers realize only 17 states can pay their own bills without federal help?

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Hmm... is paying states' bills a power expressly given the federal gov't in the Constitution?

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Posted                          

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First posted by MerlintheMad:
Get capitalism booming in Mexico and the crime bosses and gangs will lose their momentum...the 20's were riddled with organized crime because the economy was already tanking

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And then...
If organized crime has increased it is because of population growth.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
But your assertion that the "roaring 20's" was some kind of economic boom is qualified by the rest of the world.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
The whole reason why organized crime got invented was as a clan/family safety net against the rest of the world; feudalism (so-called) is just a brand of the same thing,

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
The "fix" to capitalism is to balance it with Fed welfare, so that those unfortunates who fall out of capitalism during "tipping point" episodes, fall into the "safety net".

We can argue about the nature of that safety net: how it ought to be structured, funded and managed and by whom, etc. But we require it all the same, in the end, and that's the real issue today being hotly debated.

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Ah, so you agree with us after all? You are a socialist!


--------------------
“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts

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Originally posted by Hawk:
So crime is not a result of a poor economy any more, you've now decided off the top of your head that its actually a result of population growth. Brilliant. Except that's bollocks as well of course. But don't let that stop you.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
But your assertion that the "roaring 20's" was some kind of economic boom is qualified by the rest of the world.

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I don't know about organised crime in Germany in the 20's, we were talking about the US.

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You claimed the economy was tanking in the 20's in the US. I said that was rubbish. The situation elsewhere isn't relevant to the point.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
The whole reason why organized crime got invented was as a clan/family safety net against the rest of the world; feudalism (so-called) is just a brand of the same thing,

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Maybe in the middle ages. Nowadays organized crime is about making money; basically just like your much vaunted unregulated capitalism.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

I have, above, outlined my fix; with loans to the cities, counties and States, to fund "gov't work" projects and galvanize capitalism at the same time. I am convinced it would work. Something like it needs to be implemented at once.

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If nothing else, some amendment needs to compel these kinds of loans, so that the bankers can't squat on the money we need flowing constantly. Flowing money is the life blood of capitalism. It is stupid to blame capitalism as the evil cause of our troubles: when it is selish people who are that cause....

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Posted                   

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Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
The "fix" to capitalism is to balance it with Fed welfare, so that those unfortunates who fall out of capitalism during "tipping point" episodes, fall into the "safety net".

We can argue about the nature of that safety net: how it ought to be structured, funded and managed and by whom, etc. But we require it all the same, in the end, and that's the real issue today being hotly debated.

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Ah, so you agree with us after all? You are a socialist!

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I'm not an economist, but this seems similar to the WPA programs that were implemented during the Great Depression.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Cities, counties and States will draw loans, put their people to work in exchange for goods and services (welfare for honest, consistent work), resulting in a stimulated local economy: and the Nation-wide effect will be a rescued "national" economy as capitalism recovers, the "safety netters" diminish in number, and more paying jobs are restored and created, thus paying back the loans....

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Posted                   

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Originally posted by sabine:

quote:

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Cities, counties and States will draw loans, put their people to work in exchange for goods and services (welfare for honest, consistent work), resulting in a stimulated local economy: and the Nation-wide effect will be a rescued "national" economy as capitalism recovers, the "safety netters" diminish in number, and more paying jobs are restored and created, thus paying back the loans....

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I get where you're coming from (I think....) but there have been some attempts at work-for-welfare already, and they tend to result in a two-tier system....

...two people doing the same job at the same pay level. One person gets a wage which s/he is free to spend on whatever s/he wants (because that person did not come to the job "needing the services") while the other gets foodstamps or a housing voucher or credit toward some other service and is not free to spend as s/he wishes. In the end, the work-for-welfare becomes as much a trap as straight welfare does.

If you bar the first person (the one who doesn't need welfare) from having the work-for-welfare job, you run the risk of diminishing his/her chances of obtaining employment and you create a "indentured" situation for the second person.

I don't know if there is a third or fourth option out there that would take care of things.

sabine

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Posted                      

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

I am a "born again capitalist" through and through.

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...the answer to radical, long-term change is causing the laborers to see that what they do is effecting the changes: it is their own work which is changing their world. If the laborers perceive that they are controlled by outside interests, they will never believe in the changes: "That I individually am helping make the difference".

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

I wanted to clarify that this system is all about intent. The intent of making banks let go of the money

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:


First of all, the person employed with a paying (capitalist job) would declare income; that would either disqualify them from obtaining "gov't work" (and the welfare attached with it), or only a partial subsidy for "gov't work" by the underpaid. Second, the "gov't work" is not employment in the same sense that it is any sort of regular, guaranteed job: it isn't ever supposed to turn into some permanent competition with capitalism. In fact, the materials and training and supervision would all come from capitalists. Third, there is no "locked into" tier for the working welfare recipients: part of the services provided would be education. With the skills obtained "on the job" and at school, an out would be provided for those who become qualified for paying (capitalist) jobs....

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Thanks for the clarification of your vision. I'm not saying this to be contentious, but your ideas do seem to be in a slow drift to the left.

sabine

--------------------
"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

I wanted to clarify that this system is all about intent. The intent of making banks let go of the money

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So, what you propose is not that the state owns business, but that it controls them...which is mercantilism...which is what Mexico has. Ergo, you wish the US to be like Mexico.

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Originally posted by sabine:
Thanks for the clarification of your vision. I'm not saying this to be contentious, but your ideas do seem to be in a slow drift to the left.

sabine

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
it protects people from the caprices of capitalism by providing a "place" for those, rendered null and void BY capitalism, to recover....

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
it protects people from the caprices of capitalism by providing a "place" for those, rendered null and void BY capitalism, to recover....

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Not getting snarky here; how does one go about this without regulating capitalism?

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
...as long as people are free to pursue their dreams and can get their hands on the money.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

This perception that capitalism needs regulating (reining in, curtailing, moderating) is inimical to the very core dynamic of capitalism. When such controls are implemented and capitalism doesn't work the gov't gets blamed and more regulations are endlessly sought:

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

a combined system does not need regulating beyond defining what is legal and what is not

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:

(which we have plenty of already)....

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Unfettered capitalism produces monopolies and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. This is hardly deniable given the history of capitalism in this country and the world. Capitalism without regulation is a recipe for poverty and exploitation.

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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Your envy is showing!

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sabine replying to MtM:
... your ideas do seem to be in a slow drift to the left.

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I think some perfectly normal centrist policies are defined as "liberal" by the dominant right-wing voices in the media. And for a lot of Americans words like "liberal", "left-wing", and "socialist" have all been drained of meaning other than as insults (and are not even dfistinguished from each other or from "Marxist" or "Communist") Its all part of the almost complete domination of American media by the political right.

So when people come up with some sensible political idea that might otherwise be called liberal or left-wing they have to brand it, and themselves, as conservative, in order to avoid using what to them are dirty words.


Its like people who call themselves vegetarian but eat fish.




--------------------
Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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No, it is not. Yes, it creates a few uber rich. Your envy is showing! Life on earth for humans is not fair. And the last thing anyone should expect is that Gov't will see to it that life is fair for everyone. What hubris! And the mass of envious fall for it every time.

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Perhaps the answer is to be free to try and get rich too. The Law won't allow the super rich and powerful to destroy your efforts: not in the America of the free capitalists, it won't. But in the America of His Oness's "fair distribution" the reworked Law will absolutely prevent you from rising "above yourself": all the while preserving the uber rich who happen to be in power (wielding The Law in their own self-interest)....

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:

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Perhaps the answer is to be free to try and get rich too. The Law won't allow the super rich and powerful to destroy your efforts: not in the America of the free capitalists, it won't. But in the America of His Oness's "fair distribution" the reworked Law will absolutely prevent you from rising "above yourself": all the while preserving the uber rich who happen to be in power (wielding The Law in their own self-interest)....

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Ha! America has the worst social mobility measure of every western economy, save the UK and Italy. It is far more difficult for a person to move from poverty to wealth in the U.S. than it is in Canada, Scandinavia or Australia.

It's a lovely myth that this can happen in the U.S., but the incredibly unequal educational system and ongoing economic/geographical apartheid prevent it in the vast majority of cases.

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Besides, the lack of (upward) mobility for the lower and middle classes and the increased power of the "uber rich" has been a trend for a few decades now, regardless of which party is in power. I want to blame it on Reagan and his "trickle down economics" and deregulation, but I don't know enough about politics and economics to say that for sure. Plus I was a teenager during the Reagan years, so I don't have a lot of first-hand awareness of how things were before. At any rate, what's going on in the economy right now predates the current administration.

Besides, the "uber rich" you're complaining about are the ones who have convinced you that Obama's proposals to increase the tax burden on the wealthiest in the country (who have enough money to figure out how to get out of a lot of their tax anyway) will negatively affect the rest of us. Making the super-rich pay a higher percentage of taxes and giving the working and middle classes a break isn't going to prevent upward mobility by the lower classes.

You're a capitalist, Your Mness - think of Henry Ford. He wanted to sell more cars, so he paid his workers enough so they could buy cars. The policies Republicans since Reagan have wanted to implement are the equivalent of Henry Ford saying that if he wanted more people to buy cars, he needed to give more people jobs, which he could do if he payed them very little so as not to reduce his own profits, which, of course, he would use to give more people jobs. You can see that wouldn't have worked, right?

Plus, Republicans are always saying if we want to help the economy, we need to lower taxes so people have more of their own money to spend (thereby increasing demand which leads to an increased supply which leads to more jobs). Obama has always wanted to cut the taxes of the majority - the lower, working and middle classes. It's just that in order to continue to provide services, the government would need to make sure it was getting its tax revenue from somewhere - and closing loopholes and increasing the tax burden on those who can afford it the most is a fair way to do that. Unless you're really, really rich and think you need even more money and have a right to make so much money you could never spend it in your lifetime, then you think it's unfair, because you don't want to share your toys with the other boys and girls. We all learned in kindergarten and Sunday School that that is no way to live amongst our fellow human beings.

--------------------
I reserve the right to change my mind.

My article on the Virgin of Vladimir

Posted                       

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
Ha! America has the worst social mobility measure of every western economy, save the UK and Italy. It is far more difficult for a person to move from poverty to wealth in the U.S. than it is in Canada, Scandinavia or Australia.

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
This idea that everyone in American can get rich is a powerful myth.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:

This idea that everyone in American can get rich is a powerful myth. [/qb]

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Indeed it is. It seems to drive most of what Merlin says. I already picked up on it goodness-knows-how-many-pages ago when we had a little debate about why so many people are eager to emigrate to America.

I think it's because they believe the myth. It's certainly one that America seems keen to perpetuate.

Perhaps it wasn't a myth back in the pioneering days.

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