Forum Post: Unconditional Basic Income $1000 for every US citizen age 21 +
Posted 12 years ago on Aug. 30, 2012, 4:50 p.m. EST by ubi
(6)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Unconditional basic income ( $1000 / month ) is a particular form of guaranteed minimum income, which gives all people access to some income irrespective of their current work performance or their past work performance. A guaranteed minimum income in this sense is something which has existed in several European countries for a number of years, but basic income differs from the existing guaranteed minimum income along three dimensions: first, basic income is strictly individual, given to all people on an individual basis irrespective of their household situation; second, it is given to all irrespective of income from other sources (labor income or capital income); third, basic income is not subject to whether people are willing to work or not. It is not restricted to the involuntarily unemployed, but would be paid to everyone, including people who choose not to be engaged in paid work (for example, housewives / househusbands, volunteers, students, many artists, caretakers, etc.
This is one way to ensure that everyone in society has enough. This is a way to stop pitting the capitalists against everyone else.
it would promote businesses to compete for the people's money
True.
The fact that you got immediately 'stinkled' for saying that on this thread speaks volumes to those with the ears to hear & speaks to the kind of people shadowing this forum. Have a 'twinkle', I know you don't need it but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yCvuVUUNHE & relax, I ain't hitting on you, lol !!
ad iudicum ...
LOLOL!
"Ralph Nader - Occupy the Minimum Wage and Impact the Election", by Chris Hedges :
sapere aude ...
Too bad all those Gore votes cost Nader the election.
Yep & re. 'The Minimum Wage', a couple of relevant links :
http://www.nwlc.org/resource/fair-pay-women-requires-increasing-minimum-wage-and-tipped-minimum-wage &
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/26/590571/top-three-myths-conservatives-use-to-oppose-increasing-the-minimum-wage/ .
ipsa scientia potestas est ...
Yes, it's well intentioned, and sounds good on it's face I agree, but it has unintended consequences largely similar to what we face today. 2 wrongs don't make a right kind of thing.
It's an old idea, It used to be called a national dividend I think.
This would definitely be complicated to implement in the U.S. but it wouldn't necessarily have to be just the way ubi described it. Since our economic system is clearly not working right now for the majority of people I think it's good to start thinking about new ways to organize our economy. It definitely has merit, in my opinion. We need to re-think how and why we value labor the way we do.
It makes much more sense to adopt a welfare system like in Canada. If a person is jobless, then he can apply for welfare which will give him just enough to live. The problem with the system above is that the people who work still get paid 1000$ per month. This is a heavy burden on taxes. If there are 300,000,000 people in US that's 300,000,000,000 dollars per month to pay this. Just pay those who don't work, not everybody.
And, it's good to force the person to do something, not just collect his or her welfare. In some European countries, if you can't find a job you get welfare, but you have to prove that you are looking for work, which is a job in itself. If after a year you still have no job, then the state gives you one. They could make you wash the floors of the WhiteHouse for example.
I'm all for socialism, but a person needs to act like he lives in a society if he wishes to benefit from it. He or she needs to put in some effort.
I get what you are saying and think that is true to a point. However, we, as humans all need the basics to survive. Why not just provide those basics across the board to everyone and then those who want more can do what they want to acquire more. In the end, it might be more fair to do so with a Basic Income Guarantee and people might not feel like they're "supporting" those who are "entitled."
That's exactly how I see things, but I think you already know about that.
If you want to read about it in more details, or any other part of the reality I made, here is a link to the specific book about it, it is free.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/170159
I'm currently editing it, your opinion would be welcomed, but I'm just suggesting it.
Essentially, giving welfare is taking from the rich through taxes, and then redistributing this to the poor. It's not just rich/poor as there are many levels of taxation, but that's the basic idea. If everyone gets a stipend, then tax collecting gets more complicated and you actually end up losing money since you need more accounting work. Essentially, it would mean that a person pays x in taxes, but then receives 1000$ back as his stipend. If a person is rich enough, he would pay more than $1000 dollars in taxes to cover this, but then 1000$ would come back to him. It's basically moving money for nothing. Give 1240$, and get back 1000$. Much easier to simply give 240$.
Obviously banks would be happy for the shear magnitude of money moving this would mean in the states! Imagine 300,000,000,000 dollars having to be collected, then divided back into chunks of 1000$ and sent to each citizen.
Nah. It would not be such a big deal. Perhaps all the strivers would decide, gee you know what? Maybe I don't need all this stuff. Maybe I can work less. It could have a transformative impact on our society. All maybe's, but interesting. Countries that have this sort of thing have higher levels of happiness than those that don't.
I don't know of any country that has this. Can you name some so I can check?
I think an economic system must be as simple as possible if it is to be flexible and strong. Having millions of people paying money that they will receive again is "dirty". It's unnecessary logistics. Unnecessary complication. There's already enough bureaucracy as it is!
Then maybe some stuff could just be free. Like basic things people need. Why bother to purchase stuff we know we all need? That would eliminate a lot of transactions.
I don't think any country has a basic income guarantee exactly, but some such as Sweden and the Netherlands provide more social welfare and Germany works towards full employment to make sure everyone has enough. These are all just ideas.
"Then maybe some stuff could just be free. Like basic things people need. Why bother to purchase stuff we know we all need? That would eliminate a lot of transactions."
Exactly the reason I made a basis system. I remember your first post to my first tread, I asked you what was a "beautiful word" to you, and you answered "I'll take a world that has an economic system that works for ALL people, not just the wealthy and corporations. I'll take a world that is love-based, not fear-based. I'd start there." I told you that it was important that you read my book then. I never forgot your answer, and I often read your thinking and find it makes much sense, almost always in harmony with what I thing.
I don't say that to compete for you like many people here seems to try doing, I know nothing of you, and I'm not trying to recruit, I just think you are a great person of sense, and I appreciate, you are a star on this forum.
Thanks for the kind words. I copied the link to your book and if I have time I'll try to read it. There are a lot of good people here with great ideas. I'm just one of many.
I would appreciate your opinion about my book, and it's not that big. I'm currently editing it and I won't be done for some time, like a month, so if you wait that long before downloading it, it will be better.
For the rest of your sentence, you are true to yourself.
Okay.
Usually, people prefer money since they are free to spend it on what they need. We all have different needs and wants after all. Giving stuff might actually be quite complicated! Imagine if the government decided that everybody would have a basic ration of milk. Then, many would say they are allergic to milk, and they would ask for some kind of symbol to represent the milk they didn't take. A ticket perhaps, not unlike money...
Honestly, and this is in no way directed to you but is a general thought, I don't understand why people on this site and other amateurs try to come up with the new and amazing economic system. This is a job for economists. The problem is that when amateurs talk about this they almost always end up re-creating cheap versions of something that was already thought up. Guys like Marx, Smith, etc... spent their lives thinking of their system.
So, we give free stuff to everybody so they can meet their basic needs. Alright. So, then we realize it's much easier for the people to pick it up at a general store than for the government to deliver it to them one by one. So, the government gives you a ticket that represents the loaf of bread you will be getting... Wait.... We've just spent a few comments re-creating communism.
Last sentence: Not really, because you can earn as much money as you want.
Hey look, economists have failed us miserably so why on earth would we want to turn to them? We need fundamental change to the way we teach and learn economics. Big thinking is needed. Out of the box. I'm willing to think about and listen to anyone who has ideas here.
I personally think that our economic system is antiquated. It's a legacy of the Protestant Reformation. I think what we are going through now is the beginning of a watershed period in history. The technological revolution has changed our society permanently, but our economy is still set up as an outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation and the Industrial Revolution. I think this is going to take a very long time to change, but the change will be momentous. I think a new economic system will be ushered in, but not overnight possibly not even in our lifetimes but the seeds are being planted now. Big change takes a long time.
Agreed. It would be a type of capitalism with a foundation of communism. Indeed, two contradicting ideologies crashing in a strange way. Socialism is usually what marries these two into a more unified and comprehensive system.
Creating a flexible and strong economic system is quite complex. It's not a pure science, since humans are involved. It's a combination of mathematics, and social studies. It's also linked to available resources which gradually deplete, or increase if new ones are found. Economics is also tightly linked with politics. It's no surprise that the system created by an economist is doomed to fail at one point or another when the politics of a country change, the social dynamics of a country change, etc...
Your question is based on a logical fallacy. That is, it does not follow that because economists have failed us in the past that they will fail us in the future, and, more importantly, it does not follow that non-economists will fare better. They could fare much much worse. This actually reminds me of the Simpson episode when Homer was hired to create a new car because his brother's company (I think it was his brother) felt that their engineers weren't able to design the next big thing. It's the same flawed logic you're using. Well, Homer create a monstrous and useless car.
An economist is not an evil person. It only means someone who carefully studied economic systems past and present. This does not make them more evil than non-economists, it only makes them more knowledgeable about economy than non-economists.
I think your thinking is very dangerous here, and, although I don't want to bring this up again, it's a modern problem that results from conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories make us lose confidence in the government, and in the people designing systems like our economy etc... The 1% is evil syndrome. The problem is, if you can't trust your government at all, then there's no use having it. You need to make a balance here. It's not black or white. We need to look at things logically without using logical fallacies. An economist is simply in a better position to talk about economy and to propose new economic systems than someone who doesn't know economy.
I agree the economic system is antiquated and not suitable to our present times and problems. Everyone here agrees with that. OWS was founded on this premise. Nothing new here.
I'm not an economist so I'm not going to attempt to create the best new system, but I will say that I think those looking for much simpler systems which don't use money, or are based on a type of bartering system are completely lost. We don't live in primitive times. We live in a highly complex world. I think the next good system will be more complex than the one we have now, not less. I talked about being as simple as possible, but that does not mean it cannot be complex, it just means it should not be overly complex. My guess is money tracking with sophisticated systems will play a major roll in the future. One of the big problems now is there is simply too much speculation because we can't process all the data concerning money. A good computer system could reduce that speculation a great deal, in the same way that we can predict the weather nowadays with much more precision than we could 100 years ago, we will be able to predict the outcome of trades, tax reductions, tax increases, bail outs, etc... with much more precision in the future. This is something that will happen in the next few decades. This might be stretching it a bit far and might seem esoteric, but I wouldn't be surprised if a system similar to Asimov's system in his last I, Robot story, The Evitable Conflict, one day becomes reality.
You are very good at putting words into other people's mouths. I never said not to listen to economists at all. You inferred that from what I said incorrectly. I think economics is an art, not a science. How an economic system is set up is the result of many complicated things, the human ethos, the way a society values it's members, patriarchy vs. matriarchy, stratification, many, many things. The economy does not make society what it is, the society makes the economy what it is.
So, that said, I think it is very important to hear from society how the economic system should be set up. Let regular people have some input here. Economists are fine but they've been trained and they are like horses on a racetrack leading in one direction with blinders on.
I did not mean to put words into your mouth. Sorry if you feet that way. I responded to the best of my ability. English is my third language, so I most likely failed in properly comprehending your text.
I think this only applies to bad economists, and would apply to most anyone who is bad in his chosen field. An intelligent person who studied properly would not succumb so easily to this sort of trap.
It might be good to ask the input of many, but I'm not so sure. This sounds like the dilemma of the King's Nose, that is, if you wanted to find out the length of the King's nose, would it be better to ask one peasant, or would it be better to ask many peasants and draw an average. It's usually the case that the former solution is best. In almost all endeavors that require creating a complex system, be it art, architecture, economy, music, etc... history will show that men or women working alone will create the best work. They might not really be alone in that they are affected by the opinions and ideas of others, but they are alone when they design the system. I have experience in this regard, and I can say with extreme certainty that Mozart's Magic Flute, that Rodin's Thinker, that Plato's Republic, that Smith's economic system, that Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, etc... would not have been better if created by teamwork, they would have been worse. There's a huge advantage when one brain works to create a system. He or she can push his or her ideas as far as he or she wants without intervention and watering down. Working in a team always promotes more conventional and conservative ideas as the ideas that push the limits will seem ridiculous or ineffective to those incapable of imagining them and those people will try to pull them back to known terrain. Once a system has been created by an individual, it's obviously always possible and desired that it be analyzed by his peers who can then propose improvements where need be.
That's right. You're a musician. English is your third language. Hmm. French, then German (according to RKG) and then English? And, too bad you have no more characters from Plato's Republic left for monikers.
With regards to an economy, we can study them all we like, but they are pretty organic animals. The economy will be what society dictates. OWS is a social movement. What changes in society will be reflected in the economy. There is no way one person can suddenly dictate "Ah. Here is what we should do." No. I think it will be a collective process, society will dictate the economy. It will take a long time to change drastically, but it will happen. The current system is obsolete because society has changed, is changing further, and the economic system is stuck in the mud.
German, Italian, English, French
I can't see this happening. History certainly doesn't point at that. Political systems and economic systems can be changed to a degree when laws are changed to reflect the modernization of society. For example, gay marriage is now a reality in some states, and certain laws have been put in place to restrict ways in which one can manipulate money in our capitalist society. However, and this is of extreme importance, content always flows from form. In other words, medium is the message. The foundation is very important. Politically US is a republic with a strongly typed constitution. This will always guide political changes to an extent, and will also guide the possibilities of economic systems. The changes that can come from laws are essentially wiggles, they aren't earth shattering changes. Big changes, like going from communism to capitalism always come quickly from some type of major struggle. Most likely, if the current capitalist system is truly bunk it will collapse to a point where US citizens will engage in some type of civil war and those who win will start off with a new system. We won't slowly transform the current capitalism to some new system by gradually making mini alterations step by step.
Now you're talking. I should add that you got to be sure not to come back to the same situation from the new system you want to implant, and that is dependent from very fundamental things that people rarely want to talk about.
Well the triggers are short term, but the true causes of large, watershed change, are long term.
the interest loan debtor economy is designed top bled money to those that have money
Imagine Trashy Babbling and using a name that supports his wish.
Babble-on ( pun ) Babble-boy.
By any chance - Do you live in a tower?
Be careful what you wish for.
There are others out there, and they have more weapons than you can imagine.
That last paragraph is quite good.
Thanks man. Peace. I'll read your entire books. Promise.
Talking to yourself?
Ahahah, don't make me laugh...
"Logical Fallacy" ? Sounds like a 'Conspiracy Theory' theory to me !
e tenebris ...
"I think an economic system must be as simple as possible."
I mentioned that 3 times until now, thanks for having the same opinion.
Any and every system should be as simple as possible. Occam's Razor is an important concept. There's nothing new here.
And, you shouldn't thank me for having an opinion that matches yours. This does not make our opinion stronger. And, if my opinion was different than yours, it wouldn't make your opinion weaker. What's important is to back up opinions with evidence and logic. That's the only thing that makes an opinion stronger than another. Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.
Hi you, you are actually having the right attitude, maybe you are learning from our exchanges? In fact, you are learning so much that you are slowly coming to the same conclusions as me, strange...
There are 3 of you this morning, no? why don't you get rid of the 2 other and keep this one? That would be another step in the right direction.
But what I wanted to say is that forcing people to work will never be a good idea, you got to always leave them as much liberty as possible, that's why I developed my basis system this way, people have a comfortable standard of living with services and money hassle free, if they make themselves available for 8 hours a week for work, whatever they are used or not. The pay system is above that. And if you eventually come to the same kind of conclusion, it would be respectful that you mention me or my work.
I'll read the rest of your posts here to see if you are manipulating.
I'm only using this one user. I always use one user per session.
I'll read your work in more detail. One thing about me is that I'm always honest about what I believe. So, if I do end up agreeing with your work I'll mention it and propose that others read it as well.
"Raising the Minimum Wage Especially Benefits Women", by Tara Culp-Ressler :
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11002-study-raising-the-minimum-wage-especially-benefits-women
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib341-raising-federal-minimum-wage/ &
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html .
fiat lux et fiat justitia ...
What would happen to the status of food stamps, SSI, medicaid, Sec 8, free busses and phones?
I bet most people receiving these benefits are already doing a lot better than $1000 a month.
Yes, and it is widely abused in Eurpoean countries. In the Netherlands wives of doctors who made excellent salaries draw this unconditional income. Our nation is already basically bankrupted and only kept from going under by China and a few others...until at least our demise would not bring the world economy down with us. It has to be done in regards to how many people are living in that house, living as a group, etc. We tax that way, and we need to give assistance that way.
Everyone draws it, that's the point, you just don't get this "we" thing, do you?
I'm sorry, but I think I understand "we", and I think I understand human greed, especially that greed that plagues the wealthy, the 'entitled' ones. If at this very moment cities and counties are closing down police forces, if Veterans are denied the help they urgently need, if the nation is drowning in debt, then we need to realize that this plan is impossible at this point in history, and most likely any point. Let's go out and demand higher luxury taxes for the poor, ask the government to open its own pharmaceutical companies to supply basic medicines at far lower costs. Really, the Netherlands tried it and then stopped it when it was so abused and like the rest of Europe is tottering on the edge.
We got in this mess because the Republicans demanded that we solve the problem of "Washington taking in too much money" before we had really even made any headway on the debt back in 2001, so don't try to bullshit me about government largeness we have slashed taxes from over 90& to 15% and Mitt pays less than 14 so you are just protecting the fotures controled by the wealthy families, well I got news for you we brought down a few wealthy famlies in our day and America just may do it again:
“The most recent projections from OMB and CBO indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach about $800 billion in fiscal year 2010, including an on-budget surplus of almost $500 billion. Moreover, the admittedly quite uncertain long-term budget exercises released by the CBO last October maintain an implicit on-budget surplus under baseline assumptions well past 2030 despite the budgetary pressures from the aging of the baby-boom generation, especially on the major health programs.
These most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach and, indeed, would occur well before the end of the decade under baseline assumptions. This is in marked contrast to the perception of a year ago, when the elimination of the debt did not appear likely until the next decade. But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically, nonfederal) assets.
At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses now projected under current law imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government. Such an accumulation would make the federal government a significant factor in our nation's capital markets and would risk significant distortion in the allocation of capital to its most productive uses. Such a distortion could be quite costly, as it is our extraordinarily effective allocation process that has enabled such impressive increases in productivity and standards of living despite a relatively low domestic saving rate.”
“Returning to the broader fiscal picture, I continue to believe, as I have testified previously, that all else being equal, a declining level of federal debt is desirable because it holds down long-term real interest rates, thereby lowering the cost of capital and elevating private investment. The rapid capital deepening that has occurred in the U.S. economy in recent years is a testament to these benefits. But the sequence of upward revisions to the budget surplus projections for several years now has reshaped the choices and opportunities before us. Indeed, in almost any credible baseline scenario, short of a major and prolonged economic contraction, the full benefits of debt reduction are now achieved well before the end of this decade--a prospect that did not seem reasonable only a year or even six months ago. Thus, the emerging key fiscal policy need is now to address the implications of maintaining surpluses beyond the point at which publicly held debt is effectively eliminated.”
Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan Current fiscal issues Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives March 2, 2001
WOW!! Let's promote laziness as much as we can. I have a better idea: rent buses from a private corporation, load up all illegal aliens and send them back. Then get the able-bodied male and female persons on welfare and load them up on the same buses and drive them to the same Corporate farms and have them PRODUCE something.
This is actually a very good plan, sort of like revue sharing in sports it makes sure everyone can get on the flied it also acknowledges the value of people who give in ways other than "work" like house managers (nobody marries a house). It doesn’t really “cost” anything if it is done efficiently like Medicare, and has the very great benefit of saying yes we are ALL Americans, of course single payer health care too I assume?
Get rid of every form of welfare and I'll agree with this.
I have a better idea, an amendment making it illegal to tax property after the mortgage has been paid in full providing the property is the primary residency of the owner(s). The property tax of a primary residence during the time of a current mortgage should not exceed the sales tax against the sale price of the property.
Wealth is a generational process known as social mobility. The permanent renting of property after the sale by way of taxation is a drag on social mobility.
Don't get me wrong, I hate paying property tax on my home. But as far as I know, that is really the only source of revenue that my town has. We pay property taxes on cars and boats too but that total revenue is a very small % compared to that they bring in from property taxes on homes. Without it, I don't see how they can maintain the roads, plow them in the winter, keep the schools running, put up street lights, etc.
Good you found other issues that should be addressed. Taxing something someone owns is socialism. Call it as such or fix it. Does the owner actually own the property or does the state? Call it what it is. It's a lie and needs a remedy.
Ok it is socialism. How else would towns raise revenue to pay for those things I listed above though?
State income tax, increased sales tax, energy tax. There are hundreds of ways to get it done. Choosing to tax owned property under the penalty of eviction and sale of your property is extortion. Call it what it is.
Property tax is probably the most cruel and heartless tax ever devised.
Ok it is extortion. I hate pretty much all taxes so you won't get any argument from me no matter what you call them.
Any way you draw it up though the local government needs X dollars to do all though those things and the local population ends up paying a total of X dollars to the town. You can call the taxes whatever you want, the same people are going to pay it though.
Yes, we should all pay taxes, true. But there are elderly people who cannot pay these taxes and the families end up selling the houses at a loss because the house is in disrepair, someone buys fixes and flips it, and the old folks go live with their kids. It turns into a financial loss more times than not for the family. Then there is the family that inherits a house and due to downward social mobility, they cannot afford the taxes and they turn into renters. It's yet another faceless tragedy.
I agree with you 100%, it is a tragedy. But unless the police officers, firemen, road crews, and teachers work for free, the taxes are going to have to come from somewhere. I don't think income taxes would necessarily work at the local level because some towns are made up of predominantly low income people and they may ultimately have the highest cost of doing business because there is more crime, more people, etc.
How is it morally acceptable for Americans to only receive it, and not Mexicans or Africans, just based on providence or the luck of where they were born?
I have a different idea, stop stealing from people, get the government out of the business of handouts and choosing winners, losers and bailouts, and throw open the borders. If the government must be in that business, it should be at the lowest municipal level, where there is competition. You want to live here, make a life for you and your family, great! Come on in! Help us build something special!
You will get a lot of people having babies just to collect an extra $1000/momth.
Are you still hanging around?
From an economic point of view, a grand a month is just enough money to keep your head above water when you are living rough, or couch-surfing.
This means that almost every dollar you are "given" is going straight into circulation to support the economy of your town, and in turn, your nation.
What part of that little economic lesson are repugs missing?
You didnt answer the question. Whats to prevent a woman from having baby after baby?
women have brains ya know
21+
Actually, it's a good point. We have a baby bonus system in Australia, where newborns net the mother five thousand dollars.
There were those who did keep getting pregnant, though anyone with enough brains would know that five G hardly gets you through the first months of a child's life.
The money is now divided up into smaller sums, doled out over the first year, to prevent the cash being splurged on big-dollar items, like plasma screens, and cars.
In the above example, its a $1000 month or 12000/year. Thats really good money, and 4 kids would yield almost $50k a year.
Hey, we've got Sudanese refugee families here, earning more on welfare than most public servants because they have so many children.
It's difficult to make any kind of welfare system perfect for everyone. The alternative is to have several hundred thousand desperate people turning to crime to support themselves and their families.
It's not Socialism to prevent that from happening in a developed nation, is it?
Concern for her health and well being?
So every woman is responsible for her health? Wonder why there are crack whores and meth sluts? They will fuck a guy for a $20 hit of meth, risk AIDS, SYPHILIS, and being beaten, but they wont have 5 kids to make including themselves $72000/ year.
Lame.
U R A true ASSHOLE R'nt U.
[Removed]
Because I am right? Becaused I proved succintly my point?
Answer the question. If all women protect their health, why are there crack and coke sluts?
U proved nothing - other than that U R An ASSHOLE.
Sounds like Mark. He resents women because his lack of relationship success.
No answer? I win. Thanks for playing. :))))))
Shove your head back up your ass and complete "your" circle of life.
Actually, the leading cause of death in America is obesity.
You wanna put the crack pipe down and approach the topic fairly?
Leading Preventable Cause of Death in America January 31, 2011 Dr. Pullen
Obesity is now the leading preventable cause of death in America by some estimates. Others call the leading cause of death, “dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risks” but this is really just a politically correct way to say obesity. The prevalence of obesity in United States is skyrocketing. It’s not clear why Americans are becoming increasingly obese, but it is perfectly clear that it’s happening.
http://drpullen.com/leadingpreventablecausedeathamerica
I have approached it fairly. You just helped prove my point even more. Lots of people dont care about their health, so extrapolating women having 5,6,7 babies to get $12000 per child is a no brainer. Hell they do it now on the chance of getting child support, can you imagine if they were promised $12000?
[Deleted]
Good answer. I win.
Crack distribution and use flourished in impoverished inner city burbs. You also know that there's been an admission that a government agency abetted the importation of crack cocaine? Manuel Noriega ring any bells?
And that s relevant to this how?
It was a social experiment that went grossly wrong is the relevance. Poverty leads to crime, my friend.
There's no telling what people will do with welfare money, but the majority will not use if for criminal purposes.
That i believe. But it wouldnt be criminal to have several kids. It would be profitable.
Octo-Mom is moving to Australia after making money doing porno.
Her fourteen children didn't make her rich.
Quite an analyst Herr Razor. How many such women do you know? How many would you say exist?
Sorry to butt in, Matt, I think your point was better than mine.
Well lets see. 75% of black kids are born without a father, 25% of white kids, 45% of Latino kids. No promise of money, just are irresponsible or simply want a child.
Thats without getting paid. Kick in $12000 year, I would bet you might get more.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Clinton, who you probably think is a liberal, passed the PRWORA. Look it up. On 2nd thought, read about what capitalism is, from your own supporters. It's not greed.
You know, I really wonder about people like you. I think in every society that ever existed, people, no matter how ignorant and illiterate were smart enough to know who is privileged and who is getting the shaft. You have them all beat though, because you think that somehow the most oppressed people, the ones living in the most abject poverty are working the system, ripping us off. Yeah, man, those moms in housing projects are living the good life while poor old hard working (well, interest earning) billionaires are busy busy busy providing jobs for everyone. The capitalist kool aid takes effect and the whole world looks backasswards.
I understand now. You're stupid. Also paranoid.
I never once said anyone is ripping us off. All I said was if people are having babies out of wedlock now, babies they likely cant evn afford, it isnt a stretch to imagine having babies if you paid them a grand a month. If you cant grasp that, too bad, you are foolish. Very foolish. Stupidly foolish. I work with lots of people on Medicaid, and i know their mindset. Your pollyannish belief that people are in abject poverty thru no fault of their own is completely naive. Its true for some, but for many, its a product of making very bad choices.
Clinton was a damn good conservative.
there are no winners