Being Poor is NOT a virtue!

My brother is poor. He has filled bankruptcy three times in his life. He has done this while paying 600 dollars for a fancy seat for his motorcycle. He has done it while smoking cigarettes his whole life. He has done it while getting fired from numerous jobs for an attitude problem.

There is a difference between being poor and being self-destructive. Your definition of poor is from an ignorant statist opinion.

 

Nope. Overwhelmingly, they get their money through privilege: legal entitlements to benefit by the uncompensated violation of others' rights.

They have government do it for them so they don't have to get their hands dirty or take any risks.

The amount given to the irresponsible poor is an order of magnitude less than the amount given to the privileged, unproductive rich.

 

Yes, it is.

As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"

 

Why even bother with such stupid comments? Jobs profits from intellectual property monopolies, which means GOVERNMENT forcibly STOPS people from producing certain products in competition with Jobs.

You're funny.

 

Oh, really? At what point, exactly, did the poor voluntarily relinquish their rights to liberty? When did the poor voluntarily agree, in return for nothing, not to exercise their liberty to use the land and resources nature provided for all?

 

It is the depredations of the rich by means of privilege that MAKE it unaffordable for the poor to have children.

By means of privilege: legal entitlements to profit from the uncompensated violation of others' rights.

No, it's a form of legal control called, "privilege."

 

There's also, however, a difference between being self-destructive and foolish and wasting opportunities, and being suffocated due to paucity of resources owing to overpopulation in your nation/area (which goes on even today in many nations), as well as government or employer/capitalist tyranny and hoarding.

But remember, it's not just the government that can exert suffocating tyranny and hoarding over others. Private employers can too.

 

When they chose to consume all that they produced, while paying interest.

 

In return for nothing? Are you saying the poor are not compensated AT ALL for their lost property rights? Free education, healthcare, and welfare that are virtually bankrupting this country are not enough compensation? How much more do they need?

 

Free education, healthcare and welfare are not bankrupting this country. They contribute of course, but you're apparently not able to remember that corporations and rich people are doing better than EVER before.

There are more rich people today, by percentage, than EVER. There are over a THOUSAND billionaires!!

And UNsurprisingly, everyone else is doing worse.

Can you say...trade-off between the rich and everyone else? I sure as Hell can.

 

No, you just refuse to know the facts he identified.

I see. So, poor people being forced to overpay for almost everything they buy for the unearned profit of the rich and privileged does not contribute to their poverty?? Run that one by me again.

 

I'm centrist with this issue.

I agree with "right wingers" that most people aren't as efficient and frugal as they should be.

I also agree with "left wingers" that many if not most "poor" people aren't given nearly as many opportunities as those born to rich families.

 

Private employers only care about one thing, which is making money. I as an employer would much rather hire and produce, than sit on resources.

With that said, I am not stupid enough to waste resources for the sake of your social mindset.

Everyone, should conduct themselves as if they are going to loose their job at any minute. As an employer, I do not qualify for unemployment benefits, yet I have paid them for more than 20 years.

I live below my means because it would be stupid not too. I have more than a years worth of expenses in savings because there are no guarantees in life.

I'm sick and tired of the statist mindset that turns responsible individuals into collective cattle.

 

Oh please! The cost of Medicare and Medicaid alone are astronomical!

Corporations are not a monolith. Some corporations are doing terribly while others are doing quite well. As for "rich" people, I never know what anyone means by this. For some people, the small business owner who worked their butts off to make a decent living for their family is "rich". For me, "rich" means having a net worth in the millions, but that is not necessarily a bad thing either, so long as they earned the money without government favoritism.

The "rich" people and corporations we should target are only those rich people and corporations that have become wealthy as a consequence of government privilege. The corporations who are doing particularly well for themselves as a consequence of government handouts and privileges are the bankers and speculators in the financial sector who take advantage of the central banking system which, in my opinion, is the greatest exploiter of the working classes known to man.

Again, I am not a defender of the elites who use government police powers to enrich themselves at our expense. I resent them as much as anyone else, but I also resent people who wallow in self-pity while refusing to make something of their lives because populist demagogues have convinced them that literally nothing is their fault. And like I said earlier, there are SOME people who really did get a totally rotten deal and are hardly to blame for their poverty and destitution, but those people are few and far between.

 

I agree with you, too. I think a great deal of the disadvantages of the poor could be rectified by repealing legal tender laws and abolishing laws against victimless crimes like drug use and prostitution. To me, that would be a HUGE step towards rectifying the structural disparity between the poor and the ultra wealthy.

 

Yeah well I'm not sure if I qualify for unemployment benefits or not despite having a part time job in C-bus here (I don't know much about these government programs in general), but I don't need that because my health is fine and will be for the forseeable future, I don't see getting fired any time soon, and I'll be applying for an internship position for engineering in a year or two and then get on the way towards a REAL career.

My point is that it's not like I'm benefiting from social security, medicare/medicaid, welfare, unemployment etc. and arguing that some programs such as that can be necessary at certain points in time simply because I personally benefit from them (I don't). So get that notion out of your head, if it's there.

I support them because some people really DO need them. These rich people that are snobby and stuck up and make their money off of the labor of their employees would probably give all their money to churches and what not rather than care about old people such as my grandparents who are on social security.

 

For the most part yes. I used to entertain the notion that assistance from government can be done away with altogether, but I don't believe that anymore. At the very least, temporary assistance is needed during disasters such as Katrina that can quickly overwhelm the infrastructure of local charities. People on disability need a steady income which can't be provided practically by private sources and so on.

Social Justice, as defined by the Catholic Church seats the responsibility to care for the poor and downtrodden primarily on us personally. So those who believe that government satisfies their personal obligation to charity are seriously mistaken. But according to the doctrine of social justice, the government must also be an agent for charity working along side churches and private charities. Private charity does not suffice to meet the needs of those who need help.

So for reasons of faith and practicality, I'm glad there is a safety net in place. But I think the level of assistance has encouraged sloth and excessive dependence. Charities can't compete with the volume of assets poured into our social programs. We've gone past the point of meeting needs and have gone to supporting lifestyles. So I think many of our programs need to be scaled back...alot. But not eliminated altogether.

 

Even in a free market, I fear that this disparity could be every bit as great. Sure there wouldn't be as much corporate favoritism, but old people who really can't realistically work, such as my grandparents, would not get nearly as much support from private charities I'm sure.

 

They did not choose to do that. Out of what they produced, they had to pay rent to the rich and taxes to government (which gave the money to the rich), and support themselves and their families on what was left.

 

If we could get rid of corporatism, that'd be the greatest individual step we could possibly take towards eliminating disparity.

And ultimately, it's not even wealth disparity that's our biggest problem. Ultimately, although I hate to say it because it's politically so frowned upon..our biggest problem is overpopulation.

 

The rights they have been stripped of are liberty rights as well as property rights, and no, they were not compensated at all for the loss of those rights.

They don't get any of those things for free, because they have to pay the rich -- i.e., landowners -- full market value for access to all such benefits. That is why no matter how much is given to the poor, their condition can never improve as long as they have no right to liberty: all that is given to them is simply taken away again by landowners in rent.

Their rights or just compensation therefor would be a start.

 

This wouldn't even be all that much of a problem if we weren't so overpopulated.

 

Which is a major reason housing is so much more expensive near hospitals than out in the boonies: homebuyers and tenants must pay landowners full market value for access to Medicare and Medicaid benefits, as well as everything else government provides. Big government --> big land values.

While the banksters and speculators are certainly thieving to beat the band, you need to broaden your perspective.

 

It depends on what you mean by a free market.

Like I said, for those who NEED assistance there would be government programs to help them when private charities were inadequate. What I do not want is assistance for people who are just plain lazy or selfish, and believe me, they're collecting money as we speak. Not only do those people unjustly soak up scarce resources, but they crowd out the truly needy people like the elderly and the infirm. That arrangement must end.

 

And legal tenders laws are the very manifestation of this corporatism you and I both loath.

Overpopulation? I do not think so myself. Resources are plentiful and technology increases the efficiency with which we can consume them. The problem is that so many of those resources have aggregated into the hands of a few because authoritarian government has pushed the rest of us into a corner.