Poll: Welfare .. aka "The Dole"

[Gil Hamilton]

*sigh* No tears for the decline of American steel, please. Both the unions and the corporations bitched and bitched and bitched for years, finally got Shrubby to pass those damned tariffs, and now the industry is suffering from excess fucking capacity.

Actually, the American Steel Industries problem was that it really was antiquated and inferior to the European steel industry, which is ironically the result of World War 2 blowing up the European steel industry, giving them a chance to rebuild with modern equipment. That's why they kicked out ass, because instead of US Steel modernizing out equipment so we could actually compete, they dicked around and most of the steel workers lost their jobs. If any tears are shed, it's being shed there, because that really is a problem around here. That's what I was talking about. The management of the steel industry, those who were running the show, were assclowns and deserved what they got. All the steel workers who have no education and no experience outside the mill and consquently unable to get a decent job nor can afford to pay for education aren't.

[Xon]

I'm a student at uni.

I get a "youth allowance" of ~$200 AUS a fortnight, and live at home.

I'm putting the cost of my uni degree (Computer Science) onto HECS, which is basicly a loan from the Government with an interest rate at or just above the inflation rate. And I only start repaying it once my income gets above a cutoff mark (and only if my income is above the cutoff mark)

[Headshots_Sold_Here]

Adding my arguments to the barrel

As far as the duchess' idea is concerned, the ideals behind it are sound but the execution flawed. The ideals obviously being to get people on welfare off of it and making the career welfare abusers work their living. The way to do this is, in my humble 13 y.o opinion to increase the starting welfare rate to roughtly 1.5x what it currently is, but have it slowly drop as the time on it continues, down to a bottom of .25 of what it currently is, over a period of roughly 3 years. This is to let people have about a year to get themselves together, with gradually increasing incentives to get it together. The taper rate should be frozen at .75 the current rate once the welfare user has found a steady job(kept for 2 weeks, perhaps with employer or outside source reccomendation) and worked at least 2 weeks with a minimum of something like 30 hours per week. They would then recieve a supplementary income that would be enough to keep them above the poverty threshold, and yet small enough and tapering so that there is an incentive to get promotions that will increase wages, or to work more hours. The supplement would be cut off at a point where the income level(highest possible) without it is greater then the income level with it(lowest possible) which is easily achievable witht the appropriate curve.
PS: All the specific nos and ratios can be tweaked; as a self confessed rich boy, I have no idea of the exact numbers, but I think the basic idea is sound.

[Andrew J.]

I'd definitely take everything I could get, stamps, cash, whatever. I might worry that I'm stealing from the people, but then I'd remind myself that I'm only stealing from people dumb enough to pay taxes anyway.

[Darth Wong]

Adding my arguments to the barrel

As far as the duchess' idea is concerned, the ideals behind it are sound but the execution flawed. The ideals obviously being to get people on welfare off of it and making the career welfare abusers work their living. The way to do this is, in my humble 13 y.o opinion to increase the starting welfare rate to roughtly 1.5x what it currently is, but have it slowly drop as the time on it continues, down to a bottom of .25 of what it currently is, over a period of roughly 3 years. This is to let people have about a year to get themselves together, with gradually increasing incentives to get it together. The taper rate should be frozen at .75 the current rate once the welfare user has found a steady job(kept for 2 weeks, perhaps with employer or outside source reccomendation) and worked at least 2 weeks with a minimum of something like 30 hours per week. They would then recieve a supplementary income that would be enough to keep them above the poverty threshold, and yet small enough and tapering so that there is an incentive to get promotions that will increase wages, or to work more hours. The supplement would be cut off at a point where the income level(highest possible) without it is greater then the income level with it(lowest possible) which is easily achievable witht the appropriate curve.
PS: All the specific nos and ratios can be tweaked; as a self confessed rich boy, I have no idea of the exact numbers, but I think the basic idea is sound.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why 13 year olds do not have actual power or responsibility, and why rich boys should be trusted even less.

Not to be cruel, but has it occurred to you that the welfare population is a control volume with constant inflows and outflows, rather than a static body? Do you even know what that means?

And has it occurred to you that if you simply taper off the welfare payments, you will simply create the same problems that originally forced governments to create welfare in the first place? Your proposal is nothing more than an elaborately drawn-out version of "throw 'em out in the street".

[LadyTevar]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why 13 year olds do not have actual power or responsibility, and why rich boys should be trusted even less.

Not to be cruel, but has it occurred to you that the welfare population is a control volume with constant inflows and outflows, rather than a static body? Do you even know what that means?

And has it occurred to you that if you simply taper off the welfare payments, you will simply create the same problems that originally forced governments to create welfare in the first place? Your proposal is nothing more than an elaborately drawn-out version of "throw 'em out in the street".

Now now, Wong, don't be too cruel to the newbie. He's not stupid, just young, and obviously is trying to think of ideas that might help... which is better than many older people in government positions have done......

It's a real pity that the Government doesn't bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps, as they had in the 1930's. A workforce, not welfare, paid to build and repair parks, government facilities, dams, roads... all before the Welfare System.

Doubt it'd ever work today..

[TrailerParkJawa]

It's a real pity that the Government doesn't bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps, as they had in the 1930's. A workforce, not welfare, paid to build and repair parks, government facilities, dams, roads... all before the Welfare System.

Doubt it'd ever work today..

California has a convservation corps. Although I dont know if it is in the same spirit as the original. Mainly young kids get paid min wage to work on parks, etc.

[Joe]

Now now, Wong, don't be too cruel to the newbie. He's not stupid, just young, and obviously is trying to think of ideas that might help... which is better than many older people in government positions have done......

It's a real pity that the Government doesn't bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps, as they had in the 1930's. A workforce, not welfare, paid to build and repair parks, government facilities, dams, roads... all before the Welfare System.

Doubt it'd ever work today..

Didn't work when it started. Part of the failed New Deal, which did not reduce unemployment, and did not end the Great Depression. Give people jobs, raise their and everyone else's taxes, and you can create prosperity. That's the gist of it, really, and the rest of Keynsian thought as well. Fortunately, that idea has been relegated to the ash heap of history, at least among economists.

[Headshots_Sold_Here]

Lord Wong: Throughout this entire thread you have doen nothing but shoot down other people's ideas without stating any alternitives. Do you believe the current system, career welfarists included is perfect and cannot be improved? My idea is, as I have stated in my post, designed to get people OFF the welfare system. The tapering is to give them incentives to work as they get less and less money, but with working getting what is essentially an additional salary so that as they move up the ladder they become self sufficient.
Mr Wong, what do you propose the basic ideal of a welfare system should be, since you obviously do not believe in getting the welfare users to work just like the rest of us?

[Darth Wong]

Lord Wong: Throughout this entire thread you have doen nothing but shoot down other people's ideas without stating any alternitives.

Either that, or you don't know how to read. Look at my response to Marina's idea again, and try to pay attention this time.

Do you believe the current system, career welfarists included is perfect and cannot be improved?

No, but perhaps if you were older and smarter, you would learn to read before leaping to such idiotic conclusions.

My idea is, as I have stated in my post, designed to get people OFF the welfare system.

By essentially terminating the system and forcing them into the street, under the assumption that they will all become contributing members of society that way. The fact that you drag out this process over a period of a few years is supposed to magically make it something completely different. Yeah, I get it. Unfortunately, you aren't smart enough to realize that you can't change a pumpkin into a carriage by aging it.

The tapering is to give them incentives to work as they get less and less money, but with working getting what is essentially an additional salary so that as they move up the ladder they become self sufficient.

Except that most of them will only get minimum-wage jobs which cannot possibly support a family, and with which they cannot even afford child-care for the children which most of them have while they are working these dead-end jobs. So there is no upward mobility and the "tapering" will not drive them upward into more productive jobs but will simply make them desperate. Crime will shoot up, etc.

Mr Wong, what do you propose the basic ideal of a welfare system should be, since you obviously do not believe in getting the welfare users to work just like the rest of us?

I believe in getting them to work, you blithering idiot. However, unlike you, I am not so moronic as to believe that simply cutting them off will solve anything. The problem is cultural; welfare is already a pitiful existence, yet they are quite happy on it. And if you cut them off, they will simply resort to the time-honoured methods of begging and stealing. The solution is to give their children a sense of opportunity, not to simply cut them off.

Try again, rich boy. Frankly, since you have never even held a job while I have, you have little justification for lecturing me about work ethic. Go ask your daddy to continue this conversation for you.

[Durandal]

Marina, on the surface, you plan sounds reasonable. If the unemployed wish, they can be trained in a new profession, get land for free, and their only obligation is to make that land profitable, aka farm it.

The problem? Farmers are second only to corporations in terms of being welfare hogs. What makes you think that people who are shipped to the Midwest from inner cities and given a crash course in farming will fair any better than people who've grown up on farms?

Quite simply, farming is the worst possible venue you could've picked for these inner-city folks. None of this even accounts for the massive culture shock that moving from a city environment to a small, rural town will cause. The family could very well end up being miserable. Even in Illinois, racism is pretty common in the Southern parts. Let's not forget that introducing these n00b farmers will make for more competition, so you'll end up hearing bitching from the farmers about how those damned welfare farmers are taking away their profits.