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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 12:19 pm 
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Ok, I agree with your objective as long as your objective is to help people and to get them out of whatever hole they have dug for themselves/been pushed in, and get them into a paying job. Maybe a loan system would work better then the system we have now, maybe not. I personally believe a loan system would be far, far more open to exploitation then welfare is now, and getting someone into debt has more long term consequences then just giving them an incentive to get out of debt. But I dont despise the theory completely. And besides, you pulled it out of your ass simply because we were all "Yeah? Whats an alternative, smart guy?"

What I DO despise is the "Ahh, who gives a shit about people who cant support themselves" schtick. So Mr or Mrs Breadwinner breaks their leg in an honest accident at work, and the only way they can claim welfare is to take out a loan that is deliberately so pathetic that they wont be able to afford to live in a nice suburban home (Only just about the cost of living index, you say) so their kids have to leave school, they get a council flat, and if their back is still broken or their leg is still amputated after a year, you leave them to their own devices. Fuck em, you say. The church or someone will provide for them. Bullshit. If mandatory tax-powered state run welfare is struggling to keep everyone fed and healthy, you think a charity would stand a chance? Charities cant even run enough soup kitchens to feed the homeless in any given city.

You can call social responsibility to fellow human beings "communism" or "socialism" or "those pesky russkies tryin' a' infiltrate our Great Nation, Cletus *hyuk*" all you like, but it doesnt make you look smart. Maybe by not wanting other people to starve needlessly, Im a "bleeding heart liberal" or whatever other dumbfuck label you want to apply, but there it is. I can only hope you are never in the position where your system is implemented and you need to throw yourself on the mercy of the state that raised you and that you served.

If you think that by cutting all benefits to people that physically cannot work, you are NOT perpetuating the underclass, then you are a fucktwig. The fact is, this is not as huge a problem as you pretend. The percentage of the population who are almost permanently on welfare is low, and I completely reject your implication that having to pay this extra tax "discourages" people from being successful businessmen. I cant pull a figure out of my ass saying "69% of businessmen arnt affected much by taxes" because such a figure doesnt not exist, but that doesnt mean the argument isnt logical. Ill type some random numbers at different points in my post if it'd stop your whining

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 4:24 pm 
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again with the stats bashing, if you're going to base your little talk on pretend people who's bank account, house and car explodes the second they cut their finger at work then you really have little right to bemoan the use of emperical statistics to support an argument

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:10 pm 
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Cenwood wrote:
I have a small penis


Theres a difference between welfare for the unemployed and workers compensation and the injury pension, twit.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 6:25 am 
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Forevergrey wrote:
Cenwood wrote:
I have a small penis


Theres a difference between welfare for the unemployed and workers compensation and the injury pension, twit.


Ok, while we are on the subject of my penis, I will say that Iam so massively endowed that my penis is visible from orbit. The first unmanned spacecraft that took orbital photos of Earth mistook it for the great wall of china. Thats enough penis talk for today, anyway.

That you are accounting for the fact makes your argument more credible (Im not sure MiB is though) but I still disagree. Not everyone who takes dole money has chosen unemployment.

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:16 am 
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Nice essay MiB, very interesting. Started me thinking about some of The New Deal's work agencies and stuff (sorry if that's not the right term- I mean like the CCC and the WPA, those agencies that provided work for people), they always struck me as a much better alternative than simple welfare payments. Anyway I'll lay on my proposal and see what all you clever people think.
Basically just a ressurection of those old schemes (as I understand them anyway), on a much smaller scale. If you can't find work, then the goverment arranges some for you, at below minimum wage, bad hours, etc (to encourage people to find a proper job). Similar to the current system, it provides just enough money to live on, but instead of lazing about, you have to work, much harder than you would with a normal job, and for less money. This doesn't provide them with "a bed to lie on" but equally wouldn't reduce them to crawling through dumpsters. On a continuation of this theme, the goverment could run a similar system to certain firms, whereby they partly fund a students education, and in return the student has to work for them (and pay them back, I assume). This of course also ensures a steady supply of goverment workers, at reduced cost, thus reducing taxes.
Now there are probably some flaws in that argument (plus the same criticism applies as was IIRC applied to the New Deal and the work provisions in the USSR, etc- that it is basically work for the sake of work; disagreeable on an ideological standpoint certainly, although I feel it is more practical than welfare as it stands) but that's the whole point. I feel pretty ambivalent either way but I'll be interested to see what people make of it.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 4:41 pm 
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Fake jobs are not only tenuous in nature and not good economic policy, but they undercut the current private sector, with cheaper labor and first priority to unemployed workers. This, in the long term, ensures little economic progress overall, trapping people in your own govt work programs and cutting out competition.

I like my idea, which works, better.

Edit: Jesus, am I glad Hasufin and Cenwood shut the fuck up. The mindless drivel still makes me laugh after all this time. "Statistics mean nothing" etc.

Image

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:14 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
Fake jobs are not only tenuous in nature and not good economic policy, but they undercut the current private sector, with cheaper labor and first priority to unemployed workers. This, in the long term, ensures little economic progress overall, trapping people in your own govt work programs and cutting out competition.


China works broadly on that system, public every job that needs one person to do it has two, every problem encountered by industry is countered by throwing men at it until it begins to work, everybody has a 'job' doing something, all the time

they're slowly expanding private business and moving away from full state control, but only in small steps, it only seems otherwise because they make those small steps with 2 billion feet at a time

but really it's a small nightmare having to work directly with China, a half century of hardline communism has literaly turned their people mad

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:18 pm 
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And what has China produced, the technology to do it having not been stolen from some other country?

Except crops. And porn.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:43 pm 
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Mao's near year zero approach left China close to being in a cultural vacuum, all they can do is copy and re-create, NORINCO translates directly to "we steal all your idea and sell them back to you, round eye" which is ok, if it weren't for their twisted political/social mindset and general approach to doing things that means that it will take a hell of a lot to snap them out of it

you can tell i've been in China on business can't you, they actually invited me back to do a talk on (insert central government approved list of topics here) earlier in the year, but they weren't paying, so screw them

you can work with them, but not easily, not that they're backward, more that theyr'e so... alien, this is on topic because i believe this is caused directly by the social policies that the government builds to control and direct national economical growth, social welfare and social control are really just 2 points on the same scale and not as far apart as you might think

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:04 pm 
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That is kind of the point, as I said you "cut out competition and get people dependant on govt work programs," what is dependancy but control over another person? If I am absolutely dependant on you for my livelihood and I have no other alternative than to do what you want.

You bring up (touch on, really) another aspect of social welfare, that being it allows the government more control, especially when the government has a monopoly on the aspect, I am of the opinion that, if people are dumb and irresponsible to begin with, giving a bunch of dumb, irresponsible, and (at least some) power-hungry people power over you is somewhat unwise.

At least with jobs, you can always quit if it gets too bad. You can't quit a government worker program if thats all you got.

-MiB

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