Uh, yeah, I was just using first-generation millionaires as an example because it was brought up. Brought up in the context that they were self made to support the claim that all rich people "earned" their money and were responsible for their own success. But the same source that shows that many millionaires are "self-made"/first generation, also shows that a vast majority grew up in circumstances conductive to getting along with the type of discourses/institutions that are the paths to financial success, and in families that were suitably secure financially and socially to allow them to get the most out of those institutions. The point is that no one is independent of their circumstances.
The same goes for nearly all hard working people who made wise financial decisions. They made wise financial decisions largely because they were taught to make wise financial decisions. People like those on generational welfare are not taught to make financial decisions, do not belong to families that are stable financially and socially as to allow them to get the most out of things like education(even if there was a suitable educational institute around for them), and generally are not helped along through life by their parents like most first-generation millionaires, and people who grow up to make wise financial decisions, are.
Fair point, but why don't they teach those things in public school? Nearly everyone in America goes through some form of education. Our system is failing precisely because we've drifted away from imparting such lessons and let public schools be little more than an indoctrination ground for various social pathologies.
No clue what you're talking about here. Your statement was racist because you proclaimed that people on welfare "keep living the gangsta livestyle" which is of course a loaded phrase.
Some of them do indeed live the gangsta lifestyle. Just like Kentucky Fried Chicken does have some African American patronage. "I saw a black man at the Kentucky Fried Chicken" is equally not racist as saying "Homie is living the Gangsta Lifestyle on Welfare." I'll tell you what is "loaded," political correctness.
Well they happened to be sourced.
Links to various left-wing books on Amazon.com are
not sources. Just like your buddy SSBM Roy below you, who last time we met thought Media Matters qualified as a source because of the technical verbiage they use.
This link I found from there was a real gem:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565844769/realchangehomele/
Cloward-Piven. Of the
Cloward-Piven strategy of
manufactured crisis. It's like I've walked into Saul Alinksy/Howard Zinn (laughably inept socialist shills, for the unacquainted) land.
If you can find a study that tries to prove that welfare is a disincentive to work and that it is caused mainly by lazy people and that it does provide high living standards, then I guess we can go from there. It should be noted such a study would likely also link back to something like The Cato Institute anyway.
The argument is not that it provides high living standards, only that the standard of living it provides disincentivizes work by providing more resources to people with low-skill levels. The laziness of its adherents is irrelevant if welfare is the rational choice for the low-skilled.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj6n1/cj6n1-11.pdf <-- On a side note, perhaps I'm just old fashioned but I prefer my studies in online PDF format rather than amateurish scrolling web pages. It also uses notably fewer loaded phrases in its analysis.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj24n3/cj24n3-10.pdf <-- This is a similar study that goes in depth, covering each step of welfare resources vs. earned income.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-240.html <-- It appears I was wrong earlier and the original study was in fact linked. Here, however, is the counterargument:
In March 1987, the General Accounting Office released a report that summarized more than one hundred studies of welfare since 1975. It found that "research does not support the view that welfare encourages two-parent family breakup" or that it significantly reduces the incentive to work. The GOA report was summarized in Frances Piven and Richard Cloward, "The Historical Sources of the Contemporary Relief Debate," The Mean Season: The Attack on the Welfare State, Fred Block, Richard Cloward, Barbara Ehrenriech and France Piven, editors, (New York: Pantheon, 1987), pp. 58-62
These two again, what a shock...
And this was just
too rosy to leave out:
Anitra Freeman said:
The root of most opposition to welfare, among Conservatives and Libertarians, is the argument "The `Welfare State' is a threat to liberty. Welfare threatens to make all citizens dependent on a central government. The Welfare system gives government too much power. People who work for their own income are more independent. People who are not taxed to support others are more independent. Therefore doing away with the welfare system will promote independence and liberty."
This argument is not subject to factual analysis. [ed. Bigger government = less freedom. See: World Government everywhere. You can factually analyze anything that can be observed. Liberty contrasted to government power is observable.]
It is basically a matter of philosophy. Do you believe that human beings are interdependent on each other: that we are not only nobler, but wiser, when we help each other out over rough spots? [ed. One million of us cannot be dumber than one of us!]
Or do you believe that the human race is stronger when people who can not make it through rough spots on their own are allowed to die? [ed. False dichotomy. Baseless fearmongering.]
Do you believe that each of us is the beneficiary of countless good things we did not create and gifts we did not earn: electricity, medical hygiene, computer technology, the printing press, to name a few? [ed. Case in point: All those creators sold their goods to us and most of their original creators are dead. Therefore their knowledge is ours to use as we see fit. Furthermore none of those things were created by any government, and thus have nothing to do with government subsidies.]
Or do you believe that you are entirely a "self-made person"? [ed. If I did not make me who I am, who did? The Borg?]
Do you believe that government is a social compact to keep us off each other's backs, or a social compact to care for each other? [ed. The government is a mechanism for sustaining the rule of law. The one authority we allow to tax and police us because we control its stewards with our vote. Any other functions are entirely ancillary.]
God. said:
Yeah, I'd have to agree. Children in stable families have a higher likelihood of success for obvious reasons. If anything it is another indictment against the idea of being "self-made".
Given the CATO Research I found, children being in stable families is an indictment of the welfare state and its heavy resource outlay potential towards the unmarried-cohabitating lifestyle.
I have found the website linked lacking in scholastic authority to deem CATO a biased source other than their own wish it were so. Their single sentence deeming of it "flawed" followed by a laughably illogical polemic has both amused and disgusted me. CATO clearly accounted for their criticisms of its primary methodology and included data accounting for those criticisms. This leads me to believe CATO is serious about its research where the linked site is serious only in promoting their agenda, best summarized by the titular page "Liberalism Resurgent."
All in all I'm just curious as to what your solution for people on generational welfare is? Just suddenly get rid of welfare and expect things to sort themselves out? Or not even expect things to sort themselves out and just say, "well, bad luck poor people, bootstraps and all that".
My solution: Eradicate the minimum wage, repeal the income tax, eliminate the government subsidy for the high tuitions that necessitate outsized student loans in the first place, cut taxes across the board, and remove entirely the federal bloat that goes to income redistribution schemes, turning all current funding instead to one-time charitable credits for organizations like The Salvation Army, various ministries of the Catholic Church, and any other low-overhead charitable organization.
All these entitlement programs are bankrupt. The poor will get the shaft one way or the other, this at least allows them the opportunity to prosper in the process by drastically reducing the government element in cost of living, employment, and education. Functionally it would mean people are paid for the value of the work they produce (a minimum wage not set above the value of low-skill work), and they would keep more of their stated rate of pay. Furthermore schools could charge tuition at rates the area can afford rather than
jack up tuition to levels where they receive large government boons because of student inability to pay.
The liberty to succeed means the liberty to fail, and some people will end up, because of poor work ethic or chronic vagrancy, in the ditches, I suppose. Every last one of the poor and disadvantaged will suffer that fate once the government gravy train runs out. Then we'll just wring our hands over "unintended consequences" and "good intentions." Or just take another 5c out of the rich. That will solve everything.
