patrick.net

jazz_music says

POVERTY IS USED TO KEEP US DOWN

Makes you wonder why poor people from around the world want to move here. Work hard and you will probably succeed. If not, there are a bunch of entitlement programs for you.

Nobody starves in America.

jazz_music says

POVERTY IS USED TO KEEP US DOWN

Then why do democrats force sanctuary cities on us and welcome the endless flow of poor, uneducated, impoverished illegals?

Onvacation says

Nobody starves in America.

Not true! Anorexics starve to death all the time!

The OP is super silly.

Probably not which is why the Federal Government needs to end the biggest factor leading to poverty...

Welfare.

Divorce and Illegitimate Childbirth are the #1 causes of poverty.

A return to Father Knows Best, Consent Model Divorce, and Moderate Patriarchy is the solution.

End the Duluth Model.

HonkpilledMaster says

Divorce and Illegitimate Childbirth are the #1 causes of poverty.

A return to Father Knows Best, Consent Model Divorce, and Moderate Patriarchy is the solution.

End the Duluth Model.

This would require that the federal government stop trying to be daddy.

The OP is nonsensical. Except for dictatorships, governments don't impose poverty. Taxation doesn't create poverty, because in most modern governments taxation is non-existent on low income earners. The cause of poverty is low income.

This usually causes most leftist to shut up real quickly about the effectiveness of the democrat welfare state.

Goran_K says

This usually causes most leftist to shut up real quickly about the effectiveness of the democrat welfare state.

Source? Googled the graph title and didn't find it.

Greatest I am says

Will we do the right thing?

We are doing the right thing, more or less.

I could maybe go for a mild increase in tax for some of the biggest earners if there's convincing evidence that it will be better for us in the long run (i.e., use it for better education or some other investment likely to be strategic for the nation, or to pay us dividends). But, all too often I see calls to tax the most productive in our society, disincentiving them, so that we can "give" the money to the poorest with the justification being that "equal $ = fair, moral, and justice". But I think fair, moral, and just is letting individuals decide how they want to spend their time, whether it be educating and improving themselves, working for $, vs relaxing and enjoying a financially meager life. Many people are comfortable in their own skin.

I'd be open to being convinced that we could spend money on ways to help the poor help themselves. I'd love to believe that they just need a "kickstart". But, I just don't think that's true for the masses. Many people just aren't willing to work hard. They don't value money and the materialism it buys enough to trade their time and labor to pursue it. There's nothing wrong with some brilliant 1 in 1000 person making 300 times more than someone who doesn't really try, and just coasts through life. I do however have a problem with a rich person who positions themselves such that they're a parasitic leech, enriching themselves without adding value, innovation, or productivity to society.

Basically, I'd be in support for certain improvements to class mobility if they mean increased productivity. But, even in the most mobile of societies, you will always have a poor class, and the "poverty" line will adjust to match them. Not to say we can't improve, though.

Goran_K says

I've noticed this before, it seems like the upper bound of poverty is 15% of our population. The lower bound is 10%. 50 years after Johnson's "great society" and the war on poverty the only numbers that are changing is the amount of incentives we are giving the poor to stay poor.

Dormitories to sleep and shower in, soup kitchens to feed them with, work gangs to give them something useful to do, and education to help bring them up by their bootstraps, would HELP society more than giving the poor cash to spend as they see fit.

Onvacation says

Nobody starves in America.

That is not quite true if you count the homeless that die from lack of decent shelter, but if you watch the documentary --- What the Health, you will see the government intentionally making the American death stats go lower as compared to other countries.

Some might call that murder, but American's just call it good business.

Regards
DL

Quigley says

The OP is super silly.

Nice argument against.

You win this one hands down.

Regards
DL

CovfefeButDeadly says

Probably not which is why the Federal Government needs to end the biggest factor leading to poverty...

Welfare.

Yep. Starving the poor will indeed end poverty.

Ending poverty will negate the use of welfare, fool.

Regards
DL

HonkpilledMaster says

Divorce and Illegitimate Childbirth are the #1 causes of poverty.

A return to Father Knows Best, Consent Model Divorce, and Moderate Patriarchy is the solution.

End the Duluth Model.

I kind of agree but how do you get men to step up to being real men who are not deadbeat dads, and why would you enforce patriarchy on women when the quality of men has already deteriorated to where 50% of all households are manned by single women?

All while the so called men are jerking off to porn in their parents basement.

Yep. They are sure ready for patriarchy.

Regards
DL

LastMan says

The cause of poverty is low income.

Yes, fool, and that is why I am suggesting that we have the rich use their loose change to end poverty by moving our excecive top heavy wealth to where it will do the most good.

Regards
DL

Goran_K says

This usually causes most leftist to shut up real quickly about the effectiveness of the democrat welfare state.

You pay quite a bit in medical to keep the poor alive because they are subject to more hardship and need more care than average.

Eliminate poverty and you eliminate the spending you showed.

Regards
DL

The op reads like someone who has never been to America. No one starves in America, I have never seen a news article or blotter where cause of death is starvation. Yet I have seen where a pre-teen black girl in a low income area was Nightingale helicoptered to emergency medical car for an emergency.

Welfare over the years has encouraged the bottom end to breed and chased the dads out of low income families. The op apparently thinks of this as ending "enforced patriarchy."

Greatest I am says

I kind of agree but how do you get men to step up to being real men who are not deadbeat dads, and why would you enforce patriarchy on women when the quality of men has already deteriorated to where 50% of all households are manned by single women?

The Quality of Men, if anything, has improved. Alcoholism is way down, for one. The problem is Men invest when they are secure, and no-fault on demand is an insecure environment, and women are almost always dissatisfied to some degree and thinking they can do better. If I had a dollar for every early 30s woman with two kids who divorced after 5 years of marriage thinking she could replace Steady Steve with Robert Redford, MD over the past decade, I'd be able to buy plenty of 1100sq Foot Shacks in California.

Compounding the problem is that all the risk of non-support falls on government, and that we still have Victorian-era Child Custody laws that are gender unequal, so women don't risk as much getting divorced or having kids out of wedlock. They keep the kids and at worst get AFDC and other programs. Their downside is limited by law and social programs but they think their upside is unlimited. Which is why no-fault divorces need to be A) Consensual, B) Filers are ineligble for Social Programs for the first two years (meaning, Judges have to calculate who can best afford the children with the knowledge no AFDC/TAMF/Whatever is possible).

And of course, women under 21 must attend an Unwed Mother's Home in order to receive benefits. The huge impetuous for illegit births is that teenage mothers use it to get an apartment and money/aid of their own. Knowing they'll be living in a Dorm with curfews, mandatory training, mandatory chores, lights out at 9PM and wake up at 7AM is a huge disincentive. Giving them an apartment, money, and food stamps is a great incentive TO be an illegit mother at 17.

The cause of Poverty is a mother of 15 kids demands that the Government take care of her.

www.youtube.com/embed/RBqjZ0KZCa0

The Government's risk is unlimited: Welfare Hos having unlimited babies. Ability to limit risk is non-existent, because there is no way to forcibly sterilize abusers of the system. And "Education" is bullshit. This woman doesn't give a shit.

HonkpilledMaster says

The cause of Poverty is a mother of 15 kids demands that the Government take care of her.

www.youtube.com/embed/RBqjZ0KZCa0

The Government's risk is unlimited: Welfare Hos having unlimited babies. Ability to limit risk is non-existent, because there is no way to forcibly sterilize abusers of the system. And "Education" is bullshit. This woman doesn't give a shit.

15 kids means she gets $1,400x15 = $21,000 every year via refundable child tax credit. Then there is cash aid which is about $400 per child per month, AFAIK.Then there are foodstamps and WIC. Then there is Medicaid. Then there is public housing. The Government is ALREADY taking care of her.

Greatest I am says

   
 

Onvacation says

Nobody starves in America.

That is not quite true if you count the homeless that die from lack of decent shelter

That's called exposure not starvation.

Greatest I am says

Ending poverty will negate the use of welfare, fool.

No.
Welfare goes up and up. Poverty does not go down.

Greatest I am says

fool.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am says

I kind of agree but how do you get men to step up to being real men who are not deadbeat dads, and why would you enforce patriarchy on women when the quality of men has already deteriorated to where 50% of all households are manned by single women?

Stop incentivising single motherhood.

Greatest I am says

fool

If being poor was a golden ticket to a free ride courtesy of “the rich,” then everyone would want to be poor, and soon, “the rich” would grow to mean any sucker still unwise enough to work for a living instead of sucking on the government teat!
This has been proven correct over and over and over.
The problem is not with lack of money or wealth. The problem lies with human nature, which is corrupt and corruptible among the majority of the population. Sure, there are plenty of “good” people who want to contribute and make a difference, but even these will be discouraged if the products of their labors are forcibly wrested away to give to the indigent who refuse to help anyone.

That is why your scheme has never worked and will never work.
We aren’t angels, and we probably will never be. Humankind isn’t morally ready for utopia, and that is why every attempt to bring it about always ends in dystopia.

Greatest I am says

I kind of agree but how do you get men to step up to being real men who are not deadbeat dads

By figurative (and sometimes literal) kick in the balls delivered by the society as a whole.

Quigley says

The problem is not with lack of money or wealth. The problem lies with human nature,

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/08/23/kentucky-lottery-winner-died-penniless/594716001/

About 5-10% of the population is literally "Irredeemable", they will take advantage and contribute little unless compelled to do so. Another 5-10% are fairly irresponsible but this can be mitigated by both setting a floor for the gainfully employed AND by penalties (for example, capping illegit birth credits at 2 kids, after which sterilization is mandatory in order to receive benefits for the 3rd).

Unpopular Opinion: Sociopathic, Irresponsible People increase because Welfare Hos make babies with Criminals, and traits are hereditary. Having kids of my own has disabused me from the idea that it's mostly environmental; both my sons had personalities very different and very obvious from almost day one.

A real "Wise Latina" working as a shift supervisor at a downtown Philly Wawa explained to two young liberal guys that homeless people are who they are because of who they are. She said "You'd never let yourself get to the point where you'd be living on the street - you'd do something before you got to that point - but they didn't."

The huge impetuous for illegit births is that teenage mothers use it to get an apartment and money/aid of their own.

My niece in England did exactly that. On one visit, she was telling me how she did extremely well on her A levels and was going to Oxford the following year. When I visited again a couple years later, I found that she decided instead to just get pregnant and get a flat. Nice place, a bit better in fact than the places my working class Bloke relatives were living in. Then she decided to get another pregnancy and and was given a bigger flat. All the while not working, but a place to stay and enough money for food and clubbing. Who knows how things would turn out if she did not have the option of being a professional single mom.

Seems to me that our social safety nets worked just fine, along with an increase in deficit spending by the Federal government during the biggest economic downturn in a few generations. With this combination the country avoided a massive spike in poverty that would have otherwise occurred. Also, the chart on spending includes the spending by Medicaid. Once you factor this out, the spending per capita has actually decreased. Another item is that the direct cash provided per recipient has dramatically been reduced to almost being negligible. This has been replaced by spending on propaganda by state and local governments but this propaganda spending is classified as welfare spending. This propaganda spending is where many people get the idea that being poor is because of inherent failings of the individual involved. The number of units of public housing has also decreased, now along with a decrease in the number of section 8 vouchers as well, even though the number of poor has increased.

There will always be outliers, like the woman with 15 kids, but that's why they are reported...they are not the norm. The norm does not get stories printed about them.

Don't get me wrong, there should be extra incentives given for getting off welfare, but getting out of being poor is harder than most people think. Yes, having a family you can count on is a real big bonus...and not one everyone is born with.