dangerous territory/devil's advocate

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

There's some pretty extensive welfare studies out there. The bottom line on most of them is that a there is a noise floor or about 4-5% of the population who are incapable of working either because of disorders psychological and physical who don't qualify for disability, these can often be attributed to nervous disorders, depression, and what was very surprising is undiagnosed anaemia leading to lethargic behaviour.

In a recession, economic factors can push that as high as 8-12 percent, this is a normal figure. Not something abhorrent. Ireland's is 14% and Greeces which is a disaster scenario is 22%

Google tells me the America's is 8% which is not bad considering it was the country that gut raped the world economy in 2008.

I always wonder why people talk about people unwilling to get off of welfare. They don't make up a large enough % to be worth noting. There are far greater saving to be made by focusing on the people who are interested in working but unable.
The back to work scheme is a good idea and has saved a ton for Ireland. While our 14% figure is high it includes 2% people on this scheme which operates as follows.

Workers are found internships with businesses. Often SME's who are struggling for labour. The state still provides them with 120 a week and the company pays 50. These have had excellent follow on results where the internship ends and the person is trained so the business hires them instead of retraining someone else.

I mean savings for the state are more readily available elsewhere anyway. For instance::


America, you are really looking a little chubby around the edges, did you really need to have a 24% slice of defence pie?

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

Good fucking post, thanks for spelling it out so well, along with providing facts and statistics.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Google tells me the America's is 8% which is not bad considering it was the country that gut raped the world economy in 2008.

Two things:

1.  Our BLS lies and ADMITS it lies.  The real number is about 13%.

2.  You can't really call it rape if people eagery line up for it.

I am starting to realize that it's only a tiny vocal minority, along the lines of our "moral majority", who are demanding this shit and making it seem like the whole country is in line to get fucked over. The actual majority are the people who have been demoralized, disenfranchised, or misled into silence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

We can't.  It's why illiteracy is beginning to become rampant in people my age and younger.

You got some facts and figures to back that up? Last I checked, the US literacy rate is the highest in history.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

We can't.  It's why illiteracy is beginning to become rampant in people my age and younger.

I know people who can't fill out a check. They get the cashiers to do it for them.

Shit, the only reason I know how is I vaguely remember being taught that during some school field trip back when I was in KS.

TBH, in a way I hope checks DIE DIE DIE and everybody switches to plastic. I've wasted a good chunk of my life in line behind check writers. 

People still need to know how to do that, though.

I was taught how to write a cheque at school, at about 15. I haven't written one in years though- everything is chip and pin here these days.

I'm thinking the best way to reduce welfare bills in the long term is to provide better education and training, and to support people to change careers if they didn't do too well with schooling in the first place. Does anyone have US literacy figures and stats?

Yeah, but I can't make heads or tails of 'em.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't have a lot of 'conservative' views but I do believe in censorship, especially of hate speech and of what can be produced commercially.

Say again?  You approve of censorship?

Absolutely. When Alan Jones reads out racist shit on radio that leads to Lebanese people getting bashed, that's something that we say as a society is unacceptable and I'm inclined to agree.

We also don't, and I should think, shouldn't, allow commercial sale of things like snuff pornography, beastiality, the guide to being a successful pedophile etc.

I'm commenting on being ok with censorship, generally as far as current practice is concerned.

I can't help reading this as reading that you include violence as a form of expression similar to speech. How exactly do you come to that conclusion?

I will say that snuff porn, if it includes real snuff, should be illegal because it infringes on another being's right to live. Bestiality should not be illegal, but animal cruelty should be. A written guide to being a successful pedophile should not be illegal, nor should anyone be prosecuted for being a pedophile unless they act on those urges. Then they should be prosecuted for the action, not the thought.

It's not a society's job to protect its people against things that make them go "ew".

[tyrannosaurus vex]

3 pages while I was having a flu. Great now I'll never catch up.

YES This thread is American-centric. I live in America, and it's about domestic policy more than anything else. I understand the US in general is "Right" of center for most of the world. Some of that is a good thing, because there are some "hurr durr Amurricah!" things that I actually like. Like the right to own guns, and the right to say crazy shit, even if it offends people. Also keeping the government out of people's private lives - which is why it confuses me that the anti-gay-marriage and anti-abortion movements can somehow be classified as politically "conservative."

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Maybe. I just think Conservatives have a valid point that Welfare needs to be reformed because when people get on it, they often never get off. But where they see the "Welfare Queen," I se a welfare trap. There ARE people who are on welfare despite being able to work, and there does need to be enforcement to eliminate that.

Where I differ from Liberals is that I dont think society owes a paycheck to anyone who could be working, period. Where I differ from Conservatives is that I dont believe in just dumping people into poverty. To eliminate the welfare expenses we dont just need to cut them off, but train them for real jobs that can earn real money.

Not sure where you live, Vex, but in Texas cash welfare benefits are about $104 a month. That's a month, not a week. And it's a bitch to qualify even for that, a lot of people (who have been denied unemployment benefits which the state is also loathe to pay out, for instance) who need help can't get it.

I know what you're talking about from the old days, I've seen people have babies and stay on welfare until the kids were teenagers, then have another crop of babies so they could continue getting benefits, but I think the people who need help outnumber people like this by far. These were fucked up people, BTW, usually hard alcoholics who supplemented their benefits with prostitution. Cutting welfare didn't make everything all better, obviously.

In my opinion, anyone who HAS A KID to stay on welfare has a mental problem that absolutely qualifies them for welfare.

My sister, a few years ago, went from being a productive adult to a heavy drinker who sued people constantly, and eventually got sick and divorced her high-earning husband so she would go on disability, which she is using along with some of her lawsuit win to pay some quack naturopath for an exorbitantly expensive and dangerous treatment that will probably kill her.

Some people could make the argument that she's a welfare cheat who did it to herself, but she's clearly batfuck insane, or she would have simply finished her Masters degree and gotten a job instead of systematically destroying herself.

100% THIS.

Everybody I've known who did things like that had some kind of pathology going on, or probably several, whether they'd been diagnosed or not.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Maybe. I just think Conservatives have a valid point that Welfare needs to be reformed because when people get on it, they often never get off. But where they see the "Welfare Queen," I se a welfare trap. There ARE people who are on welfare despite being able to work, and there does need to be enforcement to eliminate that.

Where I differ from Liberals is that I dont think society owes a paycheck to anyone who could be working, period. Where I differ from Conservatives is that I dont believe in just dumping people into poverty. To eliminate the welfare expenses we dont just need to cut them off, but train them for real jobs that can earn real money.

Not sure where you live, Vex, but in Texas cash welfare benefits are about $104 a month. That's a month, not a week. And it's a bitch to qualify even for that, a lot of people (who have been denied unemployment benefits which the state is also loathe to pay out, for instance) who need help can't get it.

I know what you're talking about from the old days, I've seen people have babies and stay on welfare until the kids were teenagers, then have another crop of babies so they could continue getting benefits, but I think the people who need help outnumber people like this by far. These were fucked up people, BTW, usually hard alcoholics who supplemented their benefits with prostitution. Cutting welfare didn't make everything all better, obviously.

In my opinion, anyone who HAS A KID to stay on welfare has a mental problem that absolutely qualifies them for welfare.

My sister, a few years ago, went from being a productive adult to a heavy drinker who sued people constantly, and eventually got sick and divorced her high-earning husband so she would go on disability, which she is using along with some of her lawsuit win to pay some quack naturopath for an exorbitantly expensive and dangerous treatment that will probably kill her.

Some people could make the argument that she's a welfare cheat who did it to herself, but she's clearly batfuck insane, or she would have simply finished her Masters degree and gotten a job instead of systematically destroying herself.

100% THIS.

Everybody I've known who did things like that had some kind of pathology going on, or probably several, whether they'd been diagnosed or not.

Easy fix. Make psychiatric evaluation mandatory for welfare recipients.

AND DRUG TESTS! lol. okay just the psych eval.

[Faust]

3 pages while I was having a flu. Great now I'll never catch up.

YES This thread is American-centric. I live in America, and it's about domestic policy more than anything else. I understand the US in general is "Right" of center for most of the world. Some of that is a good thing, because there are some "hurr durr Amurricah!" things that I actually like. Like the right to own guns, and the right to say crazy shit, even if it offends people. Also keeping the government out of people's private lives - which is why it confuses me that the anti-gay-marriage and anti-abortion movements can somehow be classified as politically "conservative."

As someone who comes from a country that doesn't have guns and has never had any school or even child shootings, I always find the right to own rat a tat toys baffling.
To me it just seems like an excuse to arm the stupid and lower the value of human life, I can understand OTHER countries wanting america to persue this policy but I cannot understand why there is such a large domestic love of guns.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

On the Welfare thing, I tend to think that having a life I really love and adore where I have meaningful work and enough money to do cool shit is really satisfying. For this reason I don't really iderstand the moaning about other people on welfare; I'd be so unhappy like that, and you would too, so why are you bitching?

Yes, I agree that there does need to be some maths wizardry to make sure people aren't penalised for getting a job. Generally though, I tend to suspect that the most powerful thing is to market the idea of being free from wellfare. Promote programs that help people move location/get work and promote the fck out of why that makes you a happier person. I'm not sure if there's been a campaign like this but I can't help but feel it's more effective than making the whole process harder for everyone.

I think the attitude about it is a combination of anti-tax rhetoric as well as the idea of indirectly supporting someone else. OR, perhaps even, the whole "Protestant Work Ethic" thing that America's supposed to have and extol but few people actually have. They look at it as money for nothing.

There's this guy I know, who once made a comment along the lines of how his tax dollars have to go and fund my friend's endless string of secret illegitimate children (an assertion which is nowhere close to reality). What was funny about this is that he has no desire to work at all. He had recently gotten a job when he made this comment. Now this recent job went the way of all of his other jobs. He just up and quit it, presumably with the same abruptness and bridge burning flair that I would expect of him. At the moment he's living at his parents' house on food stamps because they couldn't afford to keep feeding him specifically anymore. He tells the system he's looking for a job, but I hear he's not really.

It doesn't bother me that "my tax money's goin' ter a freeloader!" like him because for every one of him, there are many more that actually do need it. Someone's always going to abuse the system. No use punishing everybody for one guy.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I am a flat-out Socialist and a social liberal. I believe in high government services, regulations on practices that impact the quality of life for citizens, and low government interference in individual lives and choices.

I'm a Marxist-Nigelist.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

We can't.  It's why illiteracy is beginning to become rampant in people my age and younger.

It's a combination of two things I think:

a) America's special. Everyone hates our freedoms. It has nothing to do with being imperialist jerks talking out their ass about freedoms. That guy Faust? Freedom hater. Doesn't realize we need that 24% and more to defend our freedoms in locations nowhere near the United States.

b) Anti-intellectualism. Book learnin' is against GAWD. There's only one book EVERYONE needs to read, and that's the Bible. You don't even really need to read it, your pastor can read it for you once a week.

[Freeky]

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

We can't.  It's why illiteracy is beginning to become rampant in people my age and younger.

You got some facts and figures to back that up? Last I checked, the US literacy rate is the highest in history.

I posted this before I knew what precisely is the definition of literacy, which the CIA says IA "over 15 and can read and write." I would have thought some amount of spelling and grammar accuracy factored in.

So no, I can't back that statement up.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

We can't.  It's why illiteracy is beginning to become rampant in people my age and younger.

You got some facts and figures to back that up? Last I checked, the US literacy rate is the highest in history.

I posted this before I knew what precisely is the definition of literacy, which the CIA says IA "over 15 and can read and write." I would have thought some amount of spelling and grammar accuracy factored in.

So no, I can't back that statement up.

America: If you can't make the cut, lower your standards.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Maybe. I just think Conservatives have a valid point that Welfare needs to be reformed because when people get on it, they often never get off. But where they see the "Welfare Queen," I se a welfare trap. There ARE people who are on welfare despite being able to work, and there does need to be enforcement to eliminate that.

Where I differ from Liberals is that I dont think society owes a paycheck to anyone who could be working, period. Where I differ from Conservatives is that I dont believe in just dumping people into poverty. To eliminate the welfare expenses we dont just need to cut them off, but train them for real jobs that can earn real money.

Not sure where you live, Vex, but in Texas cash welfare benefits are about $104 a month. That's a month, not a week. And it's a bitch to qualify even for that, a lot of people (who have been denied unemployment benefits which the state is also loathe to pay out, for instance) who need help can't get it.

I know what you're talking about from the old days, I've seen people have babies and stay on welfare until the kids were teenagers, then have another crop of babies so they could continue getting benefits, but I think the people who need help outnumber people like this by far. These were fucked up people, BTW, usually hard alcoholics who supplemented their benefits with prostitution. Cutting welfare didn't make everything all better, obviously.

In my opinion, anyone who HAS A KID to stay on welfare has a mental problem that absolutely qualifies them for welfare.

My sister, a few years ago, went from being a productive adult to a heavy drinker who sued people constantly, and eventually got sick and divorced her high-earning husband so she would go on disability, which she is using along with some of her lawsuit win to pay some quack naturopath for an exorbitantly expensive and dangerous treatment that will probably kill her.

Some people could make the argument that she's a welfare cheat who did it to herself, but she's clearly batfuck insane, or she would have simply finished her Masters degree and gotten a job instead of systematically destroying herself.

100% THIS.

Everybody I've known who did things like that had some kind of pathology going on, or probably several, whether they'd been diagnosed or not.

Easy fix. Make psychiatric evaluation mandatory for welfare recipients.

AND DRUG TESTS! lol. okay just the psych eval.

You'd have everybody who applied get a psyche eval?