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The Welfare Megathread


DrGravitas
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Thoughts on Welfare: Megapoll  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. I'm From...

  2. 2. My Thoughts on THE GENERAL CONCEPT of Welfare (Regardless of Country) May be Summed Up As...

    • It's a noble idea and can be perfected
    • It's a noble idea, even though it can never be perfect
    • It's a noble idea, but can't be perfect and thus shouldn't be implemented
      0
    • It's a necessary evil
    • I am opposed to State Welfare, but I'm ok with some other form of welfare (perfect or not)
    • I am opposed to all forms of welfare on principle
    • I am opposed to any form of welfare that isn't or can't be perfect, but don't give a lick one way or another about the concept
      0
    • OTHER (Stated Elsewhere)
      0
    • FOOLISH CREATURES, YOUR WELFARE CANNOT SAVE YOU FROM OUR INVASION FORCE! I mean, we come in peace.
  3. 3. My Thoughts On MY COUNTRY's Welfare Programs are... (Multiple Choice)

    • I have no thoughts on my county's programs or have no country
    • They could be more helpful for people
    • They could be tightened up to reduce abuse
    • They pay out too much
    • They pay out too little
    • The occurance of abuse is not statistically significant
    • The occurance of abuse is rampant
    • The occurance of abuse is not small, but not systemic either
    • The occurance of abuse is not important
    • The occurance of abuse is important
    • The value of abuse of them is major
    • The value of abuse of them is minor
    • The value of abuse of them is important
    • The value of abuse of them is not important
    • Their abuse is a sign they should not exist
    • Their lack of use is a sign they should not exist
    • Their implementation as an organ of the state is a sign they should not exist
    • The source of their funding is a sign they should not exist
    • I am ok with the source of their funding
    • I am not ok with the source of their funding


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10 minutes ago, 6tails said:

Not even. Risk never decreases over an equitable situation as you think this earth resides in currently. 

What do you mean an equitable situation that this earth resides in???

4 minutes ago, 6tails said:

Welcome to the downsides of your nonsense economy that failed to figure out human greed.

As I said, the economics I followed predicted it, warned about it, and continues to predict it. Greece, and everything coming to Europe, was predicted and warned about. But politicians thought like you, that their policies may not make sense economically, but make sense morally or whatever. Well, now their moralistic decisions are causing old people to starve.

4 minutes ago, 6tails said:

And you will NEVER figure out human greed just like I will never figure it out, so your 'certainties' are purely scientific bullshit.

What do you mean? I already figured it out. What's not to figure out?

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29 minutes ago, 6tails said:

If you cant' figure out one for all then I can't help you at all, your economic mind is busted beyond repair.

No, my, or your, English is busted. When did I claim anything about the earth being in an equitable situation? What does that even mean?

29 minutes ago, 6tails said:

Yea, probably well after I made a fuss about it in the freaking FIFTH GRADE (1989 for you) in Texas.

 

Been way ahead of you and anything you think you can predict.

You made a fuss about Euro currency policy that involves a central currency but not a central financial governance plan 10 years before the Euro was invented? Or that US would end up creating massive debt bubble when the check for socialism comes due, and it has nothing to do but try to quantitative ease itself back into prosperity? You don't even behave economics is a thing, let alone know and understand it.

Maybe you're talking about something else?

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27 minutes ago, 6tails said:

You've claimed this will happen when Bitcoin takes over. Every other historical attempt has proven this to be a bullshit possibility.

Equitable meaning everyone will be equal somehow? At most I'm saying that opportunities will be similar for everyone, without some people and businesses having an unfair advantage due to having political friends. I don't know why you thought things would be equitable. People are not equal, so some will always be better at some things or more successful than others.

27 minutes ago, 6tails said:

Roughly that, yes. And I was expelled from Mendenhall Elementary in Texas for it. Every single student chanting "We Want Bush!" while I got sent from Mendenhall to Forman Elementary.

And lookie, I was fucking right as a child. Children with properly open minds see through adult monetary-controlling bullshit like yours VERY EASILY.

I somehow find your claim of finding issues with the Euro 10 years before it even happened, and getting expelled for it, to be questionable at the least.

I also find your claim that I am for monetary control, when I have been saying here that governments control money and through it try to control the economy, they typically make things worse by doing that, I am very much against that, and, as you know, bitcoin CANNOT be controlled, which is why I support it, to be rather... Uh... Weird? Is this opposite day or something? 

 

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I wonder if I should apply for welfare? I don't own a house or apartment (it's on my husband's name and I don't pay rent or share of the mortgage), I don't have a job besides Uber and Lyft, for which I drive maybe two or three days a week, making $100 a day when I do, and I have nothing in my bank or savings, and the money in investments is in IRA (Individual Retirement Account) that I can't touch until I'm 67 or older. I guess, technically, from the government's point of view I'm completely broke and homeless (I write, as I type from from a furry friend's apartment in Austin, TX, while waiting to leave for the airport to fly to San Francisco for a week...) Would be curious to try and see what they can dig up on me at least.

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3 minutes ago, Rassah said:

I wonder if I should apply for welfare? I don't own a house or apartment (it's on my husband's name and I don't pay rent or share of the mortgage), I don't have a job besides Uber and Lyft, for which I drive maybe two or three days a week, making $100 a day when I do, and I have nothing in my bank or savings, and the money in investments is in IRA (Individual Retirement Account) that I can't touch until I'm 67 or older. I guess, technically, from the government's point of view I'm completely broke and homeless (I write, as I type from from a furry friend's apartment in Austin, TX, while waiting to leave for the airport to fly to San Francisco for a week...) Would be curious to try and see what they can dig up on me at least.

You are the opposite of a baller. 

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Just now, Alexxx-Returns said:

Almost once. I was struggling to get a job after uni finished. They told me to come back after I officially graduated, but I managed to get work shortly after doing that, so I never went back.

So it was a near miss with the welfare? 

Congrats on getting that job. 

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Actually, I completely forgot, they might see that I just bought a plane and start asking questions, so better not risk it. Completely forgot about that thing cause, after 3 months of waiting, the FAA still hasn't processed the registration, so it's still sitting in some hangar far away...

 

Btw, what's the opposite of a baller? Dicker? Asser?...

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1 minute ago, Rassah said:

Actually, I completely forgot, they might see that I just bought a plane and start asking questions, so better not risk it. Completely forgot about that thing cause, after 3 months of waiting, the FAA still hasn't processed the registration, so it's still sitting in some hangar far away...

 

Btw, what's the opposite of a baller? Dicker? Asser?...

That fits since the real reason you got the plane is to smuggle things into the USA using your ass. 

I wonder how many mexicans you can fit in there? 

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2 minutes ago, #00Buck said:

That fits since the real reason you got the plane is to smuggle things into the USA using your ass. 

I wonder how many mexicans you can fit in there? 

Um... I'm willing to find out? My dream, though, is to buy bags of marijuana seeds off OpenBazaar, and fly around seeding the area. I'll be like Johnny Appleweed

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1 minute ago, 6tails said:

Keestering is 80s. It's ass-jacking now.

Did you know ODB was his own drug mule? 

Wu-Tang Represent. 

3 minutes ago, 6tails said:

If you're legally married, you're fucked. Sure you can avoid them for so long, bu not that long with monetary purchases like that.

Hahahahah! Gay marriage fail! 

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1 minute ago, 6tails said:

If you're legally married, you're fucked. Sure you can avoid them for so long, bu not that long with monetary purchases like that.

Actually, I am planning a divorce eventually. See, if you have a bunch of money in your retirement savings account, it's stuck there until you're 67, and if you try to pull it out early, you get charged with a 10% tax/fee. That would be a considerable chunk of change. But, if you divorce, and write the money over to your spouse (like he/she gets the house and stuff), the spouse gets that money deposited directly into their bank account, without any fees. The idea is to be able to let the spouse use that money right away, in case they were stay-at-home without a job or something. Then a few years later remary, then divorce again and get my spouse's retirement investments transferred into my account tax free. Then we convert it all to bitcoin or something else highly portable and untraceable, and leave the country seemingly broke.

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17 minutes ago, 6tails said:

New rules soon make it 70.

I'm afraid there will be perpetual new rules that make it until after you die...

17 minutes ago, 6tails said:

Well, until you have to pay the country exit tax, at least.

Well that's the point, by that point we don't have any money to pay an exit tax from or with. We would have spent it on worthless magical internet money and lost it all in a hack or something. Sure beats smuggling diamonds in your ass though.

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6 minutes ago, Rassah said:

I'm afraid there will be perpetual new rules that make it until after you die...

Well that's the point, by that point we don't have any money to pay an exit tax from or with. We would have spent it on worthless magical internet money and lost it all in a hack or something. Sure beats smuggling diamonds in your ass though.

You're supposed to like ultra hard things in your ass. 

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5 hours ago, 6tails said:

This is really wrong. You think you know someone, and suddenly....

So, no, this is wrong, at least as far as science goes. You need incontrovertible proof.

I said entirely, and explained that groups are more predictable than individuals. 

4 hours ago, 6tails said:

If you cant' figure out one for all then I can't help you at all, your economic mind is busted beyond repair.

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

That was fairly obvious an hour into his postings, to be honest. 

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3 hours ago, Summercat said:

But see, it's his own poor choices that put him there! Helping him would just encourage his quadripalegicness.

God bless american and the vets that fight for our freedom. Too bad he's poor and a leech. :V

Sarcasm and glibness aside, the fact that there are people like to dehumanize others for their lack in success in one form or another is still depressing to see and hear.

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Ohay, I just noticed this thread. A better place for me to put the post I made in the UBI thread, yes. (Also, kudos @DrGravitas for the most long-winded and complicated poll I've ever seen on these forums.)

I had a co-worker back when I worked in a grocery store that got some sort of government benefits. She had some sort of disorder, but was very high functioning, so she could have worked a full 40hrs per week if she wanted to (she even straight up admitted this). However, if she went above 24 hours or something like that, her benefits got cut significantly - a lot more than she would have made working the extra hours, so she always had to turn down work and if she did end up going over one week she had to have them cancel some of her hours for the next week so that she kept an average of some amount of hours per week for the month.

I dunno man, but that sounds pretty fucked up.

1. Why are they giving people so much money that working full time is actually less money?

2. Why are they chopping so much off after a certain point instead of steadily decreasing it and keeping it even the whole time?

The current system encourages people to take government benefits, rather than work.

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9 minutes ago, Kinare said:

1. Why are they giving people so much money that working full time is actually less money?

2. Why are they chopping so much off after a certain point instead of steadily decreasing it and keeping it even the whole time?

1. I don't think it's full time workers get less money than people on benefits, so much as if she didn't have consistant full time, or couldn't work full time, she would be worse off than half-time or full time.

2. Because that's how its been structured. There is a Benefits Cliff, and it can be hard to properly address it while still fending off people who want to level the cliff by blowing up the mountain.

12 minutes ago, Kinare said:

The current system encourages people to take government benefits, rather than work.

Within a certain subset and range, the welfare system punishes those climbing out. However, outside that specific range, it would not. If your coworker earned more per hour, for example, the specific range where she'd be vulnerable to this problem would be smaller. 

However, as I've linked elsewhere: 72% of welfare households are working households, and welfare includes the disabled, the elderly, and children. Sitting around collecting welfare isn't too much of an actual thing, anecdotes aside.  Further, as the Canadian MINCOME experiment showed, people tend to work even when guaranteed a minimum income. Well, except some parents of young children, and then people who were in school. 

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1 hour ago, Summercat said:

1. I don't think it's full time workers get less money than people on benefits, so much as if she didn't have consistant full time, or couldn't work full time, she would be worse off than half-time or full time.

2. Because that's how its been structured. There is a Benefits Cliff, and it can be hard to properly address it while still fending off people who want to level the cliff by blowing up the mountain.

3. If your coworker earned more per hour, for example, the specific range where she'd be vulnerable to this problem would be smaller.

1. Right, and in retail hours are not consistent for anyone not working in management.

2. This was more a question to get people thinking and angrier at the gov for setting it up that way than the people who have a hard time getting off of it, rather than a legit question, but yeh.

3. (Numbered this one too cuz it's easier to respond.) Well, it's a minimum wage job of course, but she had been there for around 10 years and has likely gotten a few raises in that time, so no doubt she's quite a bit above min. I have no idea the exact number and even if I still had contact with her that's not really something you ask people who aren't super good friends (at least, I wouldn't have the courage to). I think a very fair assumption would be she made at least $9 an hour, min wage being $7.45 I believe. Not much of a math person and I don't know how much her check from the gov was for each month, so I can't crunch the numbers.

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3 hours ago, Summercat said:

But see, it's his own poor choices that put him there! Helping him would just encourage his quadripalegicness.

Who made the choice for him to go fight that stupid war I wonder?

 

Oh, and hey, I still have way more economics education that you on all these topics, as far as we know. Let me know if you had trouble understanding something I said, since you still seem to be struggling.

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11 minutes ago, Zeke said:

Summer was being sarcastic. 

If that was sarcasm, it was pretty bad, because it really WAS "his own poor choices that put him there!" Summer has a tendency to claim as if everyone is blameless for their own situation. Probably helps him avoid whatever situation he got himself into, by convincing himself he's not at fault.

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30 minutes ago, Zeke said:

Summer was being sarcastic. 

Well, in his defense, I didn't mark it obviously sarcasm, and I think he has trouble actually understanding context. So, if I just assume the worst about him, well, my fault for not adjusting my own statement with an /s.

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13 hours ago, Rassah said:

Living within the means is basically hunter/gatherer, or subsistence farming, which is how we survived for thousands of years. The division of labor, specialization, and trade are the new things.

Exactly, though on closer inspection subsistence farming is not sustainable.

 

13 hours ago, Rassah said:

Nah, we've always had the energy we are using. It's new innovation and increased efficiency in using that energy. Mostly through specialization and division of labor.

If you mean that the energy (especially fossil fuels) were lying in the ground during human history you are correct.

Unfortunately the energy that our system depends on is not being renewed as fast as we are dissipating it.

 

Efficiency is a small component of GDP growth. Most of our growth comes in the growth of energy use.

world-gdp-growth-divided-between-energy-

 

Figure 4. World GDP growth compared to world energy consumption growth for selected time periods since 1820. World real GDP trends for 1975 to present are based on USDA real GDP data in 2010$ for 1975 and subsequent. (Estimated by author for 2015.) GDP estimates for prior to 1975 are based on Maddison project updates as of 2013. Growth in the use of energy products is based on a combination of data from Appendix A data from Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects together with BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015 for 1965 and subsequent.

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/03/29/why-we-have-a-wage-inequality-problem/

 

14 hours ago, Rassah said:

You're basically describing a deflationary spiral. It's a myth, because businesses target the market that actually exists, not a hypothetical what-if market. There's a good description of all concerns here https://mises.org/library/deflationary-spiral-bogey

If the market that the businesses are targeting doesn't have as much money (adjusted for inflation) as they used to then the businesses will inevitably shrink their operations.

 

14 hours ago, Rassah said:

That's not true. Oil is a worthless toxic sludge that doesn't do anything. As that oil is extracted, transported, refined, and converted into usable materials like gasoline and plastic, with every employee adding a bit of their own contribution to the process, it converts from a worthless sludge to something useful, thus the businesses create actual wealth from the oil. 

Jesus Christ, I won't bother with replying to the rest of your drivel as it is essentially variations on the theme that "businesses are magical and can do anything" similar to the above.

 

 

I'll try to keep this simple for you:

OIL -> extraction -> refining into usable products -> distributed through a global system

NO OIL -> no extraction -> no refining into usable products -> not distributed through a global system

 

Get it? Without oil and other raw inputs there's nothing to be converted, thus NO BUSINESSES, NO REPRAPS, NO BITCOINS.

Civilization extracts resources from the surrounding environment and then converts it. It does not "create wealth" on its own.

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11 minutes ago, Summercat said:

That seems to be a common result with people who are trying to actually argue a point.

I'm not sure what you mean? If someone's argument is the same faith-based argument that something can fix everything (whether it's business, government, religion, etc) then one gets pretty tired of addressing nonsense that revolves around such blind faith.

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2 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

I'm not sure what you mean? If someone's argument is the same faith-based argument that something can fix everything (whether it's business, government, religion, etc) then one gets pretty tired of addressing nonsense that revolves around such blind faith.

Was referring to people's conclusions about a specific individual, and how your conclusion seems to be a common one regarding said person .

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On 4/26/2016 at 11:14 PM, Summercat said:

That seems to be a common result with people who are trying to actually argue a point.

You and Ashley should date. She's got this vane notion that her personal opinions are reflected in the rest of society too.

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Now here is a good question,

How effective and efficient is the welfare system in your country run?

Or is it just a overly complicated unhelpful bureaucratic nightmare in which in which tax money is wasted and not effectively used in helping those who actually need it?

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17 hours ago, Khaki said:

Or is it just a overly complicated unhelpful bureaucratic nightmare in which in which tax money is wasted and not effectively used in helping those who actually need it?

Data from FY2010 shows that 90% or more of funding for Medicaid, SNAP, Housing Vouchers, SSI, School meals, and the EITC go to benefits and services. Improper payment rates (Which are administrative errors, unintentional accidents, incorrect balances to deserving payees, and intentional fraud) are fairly low, with FY2011 improper payments by the entire Federal government being 4.7%. 

That's for the US, at least. 

So assuming that average plays out for the Welfare programs...

For every $10 budgeted to Welfare:
$1 goes to pay the costs of administering it - paying the salaries of the administrators, office supplies, facility upkeep, etc. 
$0.42 are 'improper' payments - mistakes, administrative errors, incorrect payments, incomplete documentation, and fraud on both end user and contractors. 
$8.57 are proper payments. 

So about 85.7% of money budgeted to these programs gets to the intended people. For context and comparison, Doctors Without Borders, a highly rated private charity, has 88.7% of their total expenses be on their program - and that's not accounting any improper payments from their budgets, as we already did for US Federal Welfare, and if DWB has mispayments totaling 7.5 million, or 3% of their Program Expenses, that puts them at the same rate as the US Federal programs. United States Fund for UNICEF runs at about 90.2% - and again, that's without any Improper Payment rate. 

All in all? The US does pretty well with these programs; and most of the Improper Payment stuff are barriers put in to screen people out. No wonder people trip on them. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

There's something seriously wrong with our welfare spending if the following is true

Quote

The United States spends nearly a trillion dollars every single year on anti-poverty programs.

$668 billion spent by 126 federal anti-poverty programs.
$284 billion spent by state welfare programs.
$952 BILLION TOTAL SPENT PER YEAR

That's $87,000 per family of four in poverty. And yet 47 million remain in poverty.

SOURCES: 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/thresh11.xls
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2011/table3.pdf
http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/infographics/2012/10/special-welfare-spending-2012_HIGHRES.jpg
http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf

 

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I forgot about this thread. I can't say much for the above, but I am sure glad getting state health insurance has been a pretty simple process. Cheap birth control woohoo. 

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11 minutes ago, Lemon said:

I forgot about this thread. I can't say much for the above, but I am sure glad getting state health insurance has been a pretty simple process. Cheap birth control woohoo. 

More BC and sex ED means less abortions. Less abortions means the fucking religious right can STFU about it.

What am I saying? They won't shut the fuck up since those poor people are using tax dollars to control how many children they pop out. :V

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10 minutes ago, Zeke said:

More BC and sex ED means less abortions. Less abortions means the fucking religious right can STFU about it.

What am I saying? They won't shut the fuck up since those poor people are using tax dollars to control how many children they pop out. :V

I hope I live to see the abolishment of abstinence only education. Once kids are taught exactly how and when babies are made, sex health, and things like consent and stuff, less babies will happen. Also, free BC prevents teen pregnancies and overall lowers crime rates in a weird way. Less teen pregnancies lead to less poor families, which in turn leads to less people turning to crime. Baddabing. 

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