Michael Moore says Money of the Rich isn't theirs

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I again call shenanigans. This isn't rocket science. A larger percentage of African Americans as a percentage of their own population qualify for food stamps, medicaid, and housing assistance because a larger percentage of them are poor. Find me a single government welfare program that uses race as a qualifying factor and then we'll have something to talk about. Hint: affirmative action is not a welfare program. Race is only an issue because people like you are trying to make it an issue.

Whatever. Is the government providing these jobs right now? No? Then unemployment insurance, which all of us pay for by working, is necessary for people who lose their jobs and are actively seeking new employment. Would you begrudge a man with car insurance his payout for an accident? Would you begrudge my wife her life insurance payout if I were to die? No? Then you shouldn't begrudge individuals who have experienced a job loss their unemployment benefits. They paid for them.

Is the government currently stepping in to provide higher paying jobs to individuals who's income places them below the poverty line right now? No? Then food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing are currently necessary for individuals who are underpaid. If we all lived in the pie-in-the-sky utopia where you feel we should reside, then perhaps these types of government assistance would be unnecessary -- but we live in the real world with all of its contradictions. Do you honestly believe that your own Republican party would ever get behind your proposed initiative? They won't, and neither will the Democrats.

To borrow your own phrase, the republicans would consider such a proposal "dangerous territory where you move toward socialism," and they'd be understating their case, too. The same basic principles and methodologies can also be found in Das Kapital. Republicans and Democrats alike would oppose it with vigor, and for good reason. There is literally no way that the government would be able to step in and provide new and better jobs for every American living below the poverty line. At a minimum, we'd be talking about 40 million jobs -- probably more. Even if the government could, doing so would cause entire sections of the private sector to evaporate, since the private sector needs labor in order to function.

If you think the economy is bad now, watch what happens when 40 million Americans leave the private sector behind for public employment and the companies those more than 40 million Americans work for are forced to close their doors or leave the country due to lack of manpower. Most Americans are neither trained nor qualified to work in construction, and even if the government provided the necessary training, most of those federal jobs would evaporate once the work is done. It takes a lot more people to build something than it takes to maintain it -- and we can only expand for so long. The jobs those more than 40 million Americans left behind, however, would be long gone. The solution to unemployment and underemployment is not to have the government become our nation's largest employer. Both major political parties -- and most rational people -- agree on that.

I'm beginning to wonder if you are aware of just how many working Americans currently live below the poverty line. Had you even the faintest idea about the sheer number of jobs we're talking about, you never would have proffered such a naive argument.

NOG, your fatal flaw is in assuming that people are making a rational cost/benefit analysis to determine whether to have kids, when to have them, and who to have those children with. Reality does not support this silly assumption. You do realize that Reagan's "welfare queen" stories were all made up, right?

 

What's happening is that much of the executive managment wants to breakup and dismantle a company in order to enrich themselves. Many want to relocate overseas, to places like China and the Far East, so they want their plants to perform poorly as an excuse to be able to do just that. If that isn't realistic, it is to run the company into the ground, so that they can walk away with "golden parachutes" and move on to the next victim. Compensating management in company stock plays right to that strategy. Why should a CEO, or other upper management bust their asses, learn a business and spend years building a company for the future, especially when they can dismantle it, lay-off thousands of workers, drive the price of the stock up and sell-out before things get too bad? This is how "business" is run these days.

It's an absolute disgrace and almost criminal what these bastards are doing to otherwise successful businsses, that could not only provide good quality products [instead of the junk that comes from China], but jobs for millions of American workers and revenue for building our country, rather than tearing it down, piece by piece.

 

Now this I can agree with and it is the purest socialistic idea I have seen on these forums. This is 1950s Soviet Russia, didn't know you had it in you NOG

 

Here's the problem with that: a large portion of hispanics are poor, too. And a noticable portion of asians. They are not over-represented on welfare rolls, though.

No, but we're spending the money right now anyway, and the work is there to be done. Why do you have a problem with changing the existing system into another system?

Actually, I think a number of Republicans would get behind it. Maybe not a majority, but a lot. A few Democrats may, as well. It may not get enough support to pass, but I don't think it would be dead-on-arrival. Still, even if it were, is that any reason to throw the idea away? There was a time, a very long time, when no one in power would seriously consider the idea of democracy. We thankfully got past that.

There's one huge and wholely unjustified assumption you're making: that these would be nice, well-paying jobs. I'm expecting similar pay to unemployment. I'm expecting just enough, not comfort. I'm expecting hard, physical labor. There may also be a rotating system where you only get the job for three months and then they hire someone else for it or something, and/or a system to show you're also sending in regular job applications.

... How much expertice does it take to dig a ditch? There's a whole lot of that that needs doing, just for starters.

I think you seriously underestimate how much work needs to be done in the US.

Those jobs would be gone already! The whole point of this is to provide temporary jobs for those who aren't working.

Socialism is government control of production and all resources. If this is socialism, then so is NASA, the IRS, the FBI, and all government employment of any kind.

I don't know what you and Drew are misunderstanding about this, but my idea basically uses the same money as we currently spend on welfare, but instead spends it on infrastructure (while avoiding contractors as much as possible). The people hired are (again as much as possible) restricted similarly to the welfare/unemployment applicants, but instead of just giving them the money and leaving them with nothing to do, we pay them for labor. The government get's work for it's money and the people get an employment history that shows they're not afraid of work. The private sector would be untouched, because the people getting jobs here are the people that don't have jobs/second jobs already.

 

How about you think it in a different way ,we don't want to give children a good home just to give them a good home we invest in them and in their potential and what they might become , Its hard for me to explain what i mean right now better because i am dead tired but i hope you understand .

 

I can't disagree with this more. There is no "bad result" in giving young mothers a safe place to live -- I don't care the circumstance. There may be a very few young women who would see this as a meal ticket but that is an expense a society must make in order to protect the next generation.

 

NOG, if you add up the number of unemployed Americans, and add to that all those living below the poverty line (who are also receiving government aid), we're talking about 40 million people. I know we have an infrastructure problem in this country, but do you really think, even if we worked on all of it, that there would be 40 million jobs? That's about 20% of the entire US workforce! I'm not even confident we would need 4 million - nevermind 40 million.

 

Well, massive amounts of subsidized government jobs to keep people working is pure socialism. Why do you think you had to deal with four different people to buy a shoe in Soviet Russia?

What do you think the private infrastructure companies would think about your idea NOG? As I said, I think it is great. Instead of handing out welfare employ people where they are needed. In schools, in elder care, in hospitals, building roads, railroads there is loads of stuff that needs to be done. The government doing them will most likely and not wrongly be labelled as socialism.

 

I wouldn't see it as a problem to tell young parents who have children that they cannot afford that instead of throwing tons of extra government money at them to do nothing, that if they do not meet certain criteria regarding getting and holding a job and not committing crimes, the child will be taken from them and given to a family that can support them. That would be a more effective method of protecting the next generation, the parents' rights be damned. And I used "parents" very deliberately. It would apply to both men and women. The point is not to punish the parents but to protect the children.

It's one thing to provide help and breaks to all families, quite another to finance and reward horrible parents for being . . . horrible parents.

 

You see LKD, that's the thing. Say you have two kids who are not yet old enough to go to school. For many parents, you simply cannot get a job that pays enough to make paying for daycare practical, especially if you are a single parent.

Daycare costs about $1,000 per month, per child - and that's not even a great daycare - just an average one. If you have two kids, the first $24,000 you earn for the year is essentially money spent on daycare. That's why it doesn't make sense for a lot of these single mothers to work - they cannot get a job that allows them to pay daycare and living expenses.

Sure, you can subsidize the daycare expenses, but then you've just traded one payment for another.

 

That's right. And you have not even started figuring other expenses, like the high cost of transportation for a job. I could not help but notice that the ones opposed to choice for young mothers are the same ones who want to help single mothers and their children the least. What a surprise that is....

 

What is wrong in expecting people to take responsibility for their actions and decisions, rather than enabling them to make many more bad decisions? That goes for corporate fat cats as well, not just the people who don't have enough money. When people make good, intelligent choices they should be rewarded. When they make lousy ones they should be held accountable. Government aid should be either universal or tied to people who didn't have a choice (accident or disease victims and the like).

I re-iterate -- what is mine is mine. I work for it. What is yours is yours. I hazard you all work for it. What I do with my money and what you do with yours is something that should be primarily left up to you. Reasonable taxes are the price of civilization, but excessive taxes are just that -- excessive and unnecessary, not to mention an infringement upon freedom.

Canada (the land where Mr. Moore says there is so little crime, what a douche) has a particular problem that was summed up by a pundit almost 2 decades ago. His name escapes me, but he said "Canadians want European levels of government services coupled with American levels of taxation. This simply will not work." And he was right -- sort of. Because it CAN work in the short term through the miracle of deficit financing. People love it . . . until the time comes to pay the piper.

 

I'd think the reason that joacqin brings up the socialism into it, is that such efforts like creating a government-enforced work programme does create huge market inefficiencies. Let's take, as an example, building a road. Now here if the government wants to build a road, they are obliged to put the contract up for an open tender, where all building companies can bid for the job. If the government has their own force, of extremely under-paid workers who have to be there, would any business really be able to compete on the large-project side of things? Even take painting a fence. Let's say I want my fence painted. I can do it myself or hire a local business to do it. If I could instead turn to this government work force, with the crew paid at very low levels and hence able to offer the services at a cheaper rate, who do you think I'd turn to? Even my vague free-market beliefs wouldn't be enough to stop me from saving a few hundred dollars in choosing to use the government work programme staff.

 

That reminds me of the sub-plot in "The Shawshank Redemption", wherein the evil Warden used convict labour to undercut independant contractors -- those contractors would give him lots of money to work elsewhere and not take their projects away.

That said, surely there are some things, infrastructure wise, that need doing. Or maybe there's a third way. Bottom line, unless you actually CAN'T work at all, then in order to access public money you need to do something , anything, of value to the public, not just sponge it up like an entitled douche.

 

The "enabling" part of your post is nonsense. On the one hand, you claim that people should take responsibility for their own actions, while in the next breath, you blame people who want to help as "enabling bad decisions." Suddenly, it's the fault of the ones who want to help out, especially help the children. You are the first ones to claim "it's not the fault of the child" but when the shoe is on the other foot it's, "What's mine is mine; it's every man [or child] for himself."

 

What poor decisions did the children of that single mother make that you would like them to be held accountable for? The reason I ask is because under your system, the children would be punished as much as the parents.

EDIT: Other posts while I was posting - sorry for re-iterating points already made...

I agree, but I think there's an even more basic question than that. What makes you think the road would be built correctly? Modern construction crews do not feature a huge percentage of general, unskilled laborers. They require engineers, land surveyors, and specialized licenses are required to operate the heavy equipment used to build the road. If you employ only cheap labor, expect a less than great product. You get what you pay for.

 

Actually, we're talking about far more than 40 million people. More than 43 million households are currently living below the poverty line. The number of new and or/higher paying jobs needed to rectify the situation would be far in excess of that. More than 40 million jobs is really just a conservative starting point.

 

I made it very clear that the children should not be punished -- they should be removed from useless parents and given to families that will love and care for them.

Allowing the children to stay with rotten parents because the parents have "rights" to have children is ridiculous in the extreme.

Make no mistake, the parents should be held accountable for their stupidity, NOT the children.

EDIT: If people want to use their own money to enable stupidity, that's their business. It's when people want to use public money to do it that I get pissed off. Public money should go to the public good. Financing addicts, basically paying them to have more children than they can afford or have the skills to take care of, is not in the public interest.

 

A large portion of hispanics are also illegal. Illegals don't qualify for government aid. According to census data, Asians enjoy a lower poverty rate than whites. (In 2006, their poverty rate was 10.7%, for whites it was 13.3%) Where on earth do you get your information? Are you pulling it out of Rush Limbaugh's ass? Try a real source. www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-08.pdf I only know one word to describe this type of ignorance, and it isn't pretty. Racism. You're a racist, at least where this issue is concerned. Don't worry, though, I don't hold it against you -- lots of people are racist from time to time. It's easy to stop, too. Just start looking at actual facts, examine your preconceived notions critically, and stop repeating the ignorant drivel that passes from the lips of those around you without first checking to see if it is factually accurate.

I don't, but the changes need to be both realistic and, uh, possible. Have you even begun to think about the cost of adding 40 million, or even just the millions on unemployment assistance to the payroll? First of all, we'd have to pay them even more than we currently do, because many unemployment often pays out less than the minimum wage. I'm all for re-training our workforce, but we don't need millions of new engineers, construction workers, and electricians. We have plenty of builders, and we don't several million new anything. Iowa has several very successful vocational rehabilitation programs that train qualifying applicants in the new skills needed to thrive in our modern economy. People who go through the training don't come back to the unemployment office and no longer need food stamps or medicaid. That's real and lasting success, and it costs the government far less than adding all those people to the payroll. In fact, the government profit, because these people go from having no tax liability and receiving government assistance to paying taxes. It's a pity that Iowa Republicans are constantly trying to de-fund the program...

You're incredibly naive. Republicans might get behind hiring new contractors to help rebuild our infrastructure and offering grants, subsidizing loans, and issuing tax incentive to encourage the private sector to engage in such development. They won't get behind adding 40 million unskilled people to the payroll, training them, and setting them to work on a project that, once completed, will require them to lay off those 40 million.

In that case, you're also expecting to continue providing these people with food stamps, subsidized housing, and medical assistance, no? Most of us wouldn't be able to keep food on our plates and a roof over our heads with our income cut in half.

That isn't what you said. You said that you would have the government put these people to work in lieu of "handouts". Not only that, but you included everyone on government assistance in you group. You're changing your meaning now? Fine. Here's the rub. Unemployment isn't a handout. It is an insurance program that every working American pays into. Your benefits are based entirely on the work you've done before. Americans that have not worked do not qualify. Americans who have worked very little receive very little benefits. The time you can remain on the program is limited, and recipients are required to document their job search efforts and provide that documentation on request. Such audits, of course, are rare -- but that's because the government doesn't want to pay for more auditors. I, for one, would support funding for more auditors wholeheartedly. Would it be right for my life insurance company to make my wife work to recieve my death benefit? No? Then why do you view unemplyment insurance so differently?

Very few people abuse unemployment insurance. When they do, they commit fraud -- and the penalties for it are dire. The program works, yet you suggest that we scrap it entirely instead of catching and prosecuting the cheaters? Really? Were we to pass your proposal, we would have to stop collecting unemployment insurance since we would no longer be offering "insurance". This would lower revenue, and adding these people to the payroll, paying for their equipment, and hiring new personnel to mange them would be no small expense. This expense will come from general funds. Congratulations! You just increased the deficit to fix a problem that doesn't even exist!

 

That's really stunning. You would think that we would invest in helping single moms aquire the skills and tools they need; that we would invest in our teachers and schools and build for the future, rather than spend our money blowing up Arabs in the Middle East and paying off private contrators with plane loads of cash. Now they are talking about bombing Lybia. We have plenty of money to build schools in Iraq, but none for our children whose parent happens to be a single mom. Disgraceful. But then where are the jobs for the single moms who invest the time, money and effort to aquire the skills? China? Is that the conservative "dream" for America? That we become like China? It wouldn't surprsie me, these days.