Breaking teh interwebz - NSA styleFollow

You're the tool. Food stamps, like money and other currencies, are now electronic cuz it's a boatload more efficient (less material cost, less shipping, less handling, less security,better tracking, more transparency etc etc ) than the paper ones.

It had 'zero' to do with stigma.

You're kidding right? That can't work. It will never work. Ever. Not with anything remotely resembling our current understanding of "middle class". The best way to encourage upward mobility is to make it as easy as possible for people to move upward. This means easy/available entry level employment with obtainable advancement opportunities. Giving people money works against that because it makes that first step harder to make. When entry level pay isn't better than the free money the government is handing you, many poor people will choose not to work. And if they choose not to work they can't advance upward. Ever. They get "stuck" in poverty.




I think you need to turn that around.



Motivation is the primary factor in anything that requires effort. People make choices Smash. Free money affects the choices people make about employment. This is not laughable, and it's not offensive. It's true.

That shows that giving people money helps them become middle class? Hell. That it even helps them get out of poverty? I think there's tons of people saying that this is what we should do, or even that this is what works, but not a whole lot of actual data showing that the results are what those people predict. It's like you've skipped everything past "create a hypothesis" in the scientific method and went right to assuming your hypothesis is correct. But when we actually test it? It doesn't work.



That people have to have a motivation to expend effort? Um... Common sense? Laws of nature? Basic psychology? Pick one Smash. To parrot you, this isn't exactly debatable. If I tell you that you can earn a reward if you climb that mountain over there *or* I'll give you the same reward if you just stand around doing nothing, how likely are you to climb that mountain? Close to zero, right?

The same principle applies with regard to relative rewards versus effort as well. It's more or less the basis of most parts of economic theory. People will trade their labor for something else based on a relative valuation of those two things. If the labor isn't worth the reward, they wont do it. Government handouts act as an opportunity cost for employment because the more you work and the more you earn via employment, the less free stuff you get from the government. This acts as a barrier to advancement because in order to even start on a career path, the poor person has to choose to make a series of choices that require additional effort, but at least in the short term do not result in any increased reward.

To suggest that this has no effect on people's choices and the result is like saying that fire being hot has no impact on people's choices to stick their hands in it. Do we really need data to show this? Or can we simply realize that this is basic human nature?



Works at what? Providing the poor person with a better standard of living than otherwise? I'm not arguing that. What I am arguing is that at the same time it reduces the odds of that poor person getting out of poverty. Because you've reduced the discomfort of their situation, while decreasing the reward of taking any steps to get out of it. Of course that's going to influence people's decisions. It can't not do so.

The welfare state is really really good at maintaining the welfare state.



Correlation is not causation though, right? Nations with lots of large single family dwellings tend to have larger middle classes as well. But one would be an idiot to think that building larger houses makes the middle class grow. Kinda the other way around, right? You can't create a middle class by first creating a welfare state. You can, however, create a welfare state once you have a strong middle class.




Er? Well, if you're asking for partisan sources, how about this?. Or this?. Hell, even Bill Clinton believes that when you make it harder to choose to stay on welfare rather than work, people will work.

I could probably list a hundred links saying the same thing. While it didn't go far enough IMO, the welfare reform of 1996 did make it harder for people to just sit on welfare forever. And despite screaming from the left that people would starve to death and their lives be ruined, the fact is that the opposite happened. It turned out that conservative were right, and that the very existence of welfare benefits affected people's employment choices negatively. The oft quoted claim of the left that people on welfare just can't possibly provide for themselves and would suffer horribly without assistance turned out to be completely false. When it became harder to stay on welfare, people did exactly what conservatives said they would do: They went out and got jobs. And, because they got jobs instead of handouts, as time went by they became more employable, their labor value increased, and their standard of living increased beyond that which they could have ever had on welfare.


You talk about evidence, but don't provide any. All evidence strongly supports the idea that the existence of welfare programs affects people's employment choices and that when you take away the "free money" an amazing percentage of those who insisted they just could not possibly find a job manage to do so. Necessity and all of that, right?

This is not novel. It's not shocking. It only requires that one not adopt a fanciful set of assumptions that fly completely in the face of common sense and human nature. People will *always* seek to gain the best reward for the least effort. It's what makes us human. It's why we build tools. It's why we grow crops and herd animals instead of hunting and gathering. To suggest that welfare benefits don't affect people's choices about how much or how hard to work is to deny human nature. And no, this is not offensive. Not unless you're being incredibly dishonest about what human nature really is.

Edited, Sep 17th 2013 4:30pm by gbaji

Saying that doesn't make it true Smash. What data?




We're not talking about poverty rates Smash. We're talking about whether the ease of availability of welfare negatively impacts employment (and ultimately upward mobility). Poverty rates aren't relevant because they take into account the welfare benefits themselves. But a person who's receiving X dollars of assistance is far less likely to improve their condition than a person who earns X dollars by working. But both will count at the same level when calculating poverty rates.




Of course. Because your definition of "poor" counts the money people are being given. It's a completely meaningless statement. The question is whether or not that assistance negatively effects future employment and advancement. No one's saying that if you include assistance in your poverty equations and make sure that everyone receives sufficient assistance to move them above the poverty line that you can "end poverty".

But that's just a paper solution. You've put food in people's mouths and shelter over their heads. What you haven't done at all is address the conditions which caused them to need that assistance in the first place. This is why measuring relative rates at which people need that assistance matters. It shows us what the natural state of the economy is. Welfare doesn't fix that, and arguably makes it worse.



Only when they become less poor as a result of employment. When they become less poor as a result of government handouts, they don't become middle class. They *can't*. There is no route from "living on welfare" to "middle class" that does not require getting a job that pays enough to not qualify for welfare anymore as an in between step. Thus, it's not welfare that gets you to middle class. It's employment. Welfare reduces the odds of that happening because in the short term, the person has to go through a phase where increased effort in the form of employment doesn't result in increased standard of living.




That was not my argument though. I said that I believe that many of the "free money" programs don't help poor people in the long run because it adversely affects their odds of becoming upwardly mobile and improving their economic condition. Of course it helps them in the short term. But that's not the issue.

We're not talking about poverty rates Smash. We're talking about whether the ease of availability of welfare negatively impacts employment (and ultimately upward mobility)

No, were talking about poverty rates, not further and further removed metrics until we find one for some period of time that seems to validate your childlike need to lie in a fantasy world where hard work and determination are all a boy needs to overcome a rough start in life.

I linked to data, you moved the goalposts. We're done. You lose. Continue with someone else if you like, watching you engage in denial is boring for me. I understand why you have to do it. You lucked into a job in, literally, the best job market in history. You bought a house (a condo, probably, because you're a moron) in the best real estate market in history. You have no useful job skills, so you've clung to the same job tooth and nail basically your entire adult life. You invested money in the stock market during the greatest bull market in history. None of these are exaggerations. You have, literally, been astonishingly lucky in every phase of your life. Complete luck.

That has to be hard to deal with, the idea that a retarded child with the same timing would be exactly as successful as you have been. You haven't made any good decisions, because you haven't had to make any decisions. You were at a time in your life when you needed job, and that was easy. You needed a house and that was easy, then your house went up in value every year. You wanted to invest money and everything in the market went up like a rocket. Same for the company you worked for. Understand clearly, None of your modest success is related to you. None of it. Everyone your age in your career field has done spectacularly well. Most of them far better than you have, to be honest. Someone responsible for their own success would have some level of self awareness. They'd have set out on their own, or moved on from their wage slave job, tested themselves. You haven't, though. I mean you're not an entrepreneur, obviously, although that would make a good story about the two weeks until you were dead broke, I imagine. You won a lottery, sport, stop trying to pretend you predicted the numbers with hard work.

Um. No. I was not talking about poverty rates. I was asked why I oppose many social assistance programs and I said the following (among other things):



I was specifically speaking of the fact that while those programs allow the poor person to live as though they are not poor, it makes it harder for them to get out of that condition. Thus, while it helps them in the short term, it hurts them in the long run.



No. You chose to argue against something completely different than what I was talking about, and now that I've corrected you, you're claiming I 'moved the goal posts'. How is that possible? This was my position. I get to say what my position is Smash. Not you.

My argument is that the positive of those kinds of programs (allowing people to live at an economic level higher than their employment provides) is also the negative because by doing that you create a gap between what they can earn via employment today and what they're actually getting today. The amount they have to increase their employment pay by to simply match what they're getting with the assistance can be sufficiently great that they wont bother doing it. So ironically, the more we help them in terms of dollars worth of assistance, the more we are hurting them in terms of negative economic pressure against their own earnings.

This is the factor I was talking about. It's why I oppose those programs. You're free to disagree, but at least respond to what I'm actually saying. I fully acknowledge that by giving people money we can improve their immediate living condition. But IMO the cost of that is an increase in the likelihood that the person we've helped will continue to need help in the future. We're perpetuating their poverty but excusing it because we're eliminating the symptoms of that poverty. I don't think that's a good thing though.

I believe there is a big difference between someone earning $20/year directly via employment and someone earning say $10/year but getting an additional $10k/year equivalent in assistance. On paper we can say that both can live the same lifestyle, and some will clap themselves on the back and declare that they've "ended poverty", but the future prospects for those two people are going to be radically different. 10 years from now, the first person will likely have increased their salary to several times what they are making today while the second person will most likely still be living on whatever the equivalent of $20/year is. As I said above, this is because that $10k gap creates a significant disincentive for the second person to expend effort finding a better job, or work more hours, or otherwise increase his "real" pay. The first guy gets a reward for every single dollar he can increase his pay. The second guy gets *nothing* for the next $10/year he increases his pay.


This is why I think it doesn't help them in the long run. In the short term? Sure. In the long run, it's a trap.

No/

Yes. We're done here. You're not persuadable, and you don't care at all about evidence. You want the "hard work" fairy to exist, and it doesn't. Not that it isn't already laughable, but keep in mind going forward that anytime you use the word "data" people chuckle. Not just me. Good luck with your delusions of mediocrity.

If there's anything, it's that no one ever pretends that.

Huh? What moral argument? Now you're just tossing stuff at a wall and hoping something sticks.

I'm talking about human nature Smash. If you provide someone with the same outcome regardless of which of a set of actions they choose to do, they will chose the action which requires the least amount of effort. Period. Can you even acknowledge that this is true?

Welfare programs (the "free money" stuff I started out talking about) create a situation where someone can receive the same outcome from a range of actual earning levels. This should also not be debatable since this is precisely what those programs are designed to do.

As a general rule, it takes more effort to earn more money. This is especially true at the lower income levels, which is the range in question.

Given that these three statements are true, we can conclude that welfare programs decrease the likelihood that people will make choices which will result in their real earnings increasing. At the low income range, welfare creates a situation where there's no gain if the person works harder, works more hours, or works to improve their skills. Therefore, people receiving it will be less likely to do those things. This is pretty basic logic based on some very basic assumptions.



What data? You've shown no data that counters what I'm saying. Zero. Zip. Nada. I love how you keep talking about data, but haven't presented any.

Face it, predicting and judging human nature is not your strong point.

What data?

We're done. I believe I've mentioned that. I can continue to reply "we're done" if you'd like to continue to reply with idiotic claims of ignorance. Seems boring for you, but for me it's just two words. Sorry you so badly lost this one, mate. The good news is that won't matter at all to what you think or how you live your life. I mean, hell, if being wrong bothered you at all you'd be long dead from suicide.

Ah... the "stick your fingers in your ears approach". Got it. Why not just admit that you can't refute what I'm saying? I mean, you talk about how there's all this data, but you don't provide any. You intentionally misread what I wrote so that you can pretend to win an argument no one made. And when I point all this out? "La la la la la. I can't hear you!".

Way to be a "winner" there Smash.

Pretty much everything that has to do with attracting a mate and social status. Showing off excess = more fit and such.

Have no idea what this has to do with the rest of the stuff though, I stopped following the conversation a while back.