Posts by Grant Dexter
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What do I think about the Cubans? I think it's great that they meet needs and show generosity as you've described.
Steven. What would you think if the American government forced Cuba to send it's doctors to do the same jobs under the threat of invasion?
Why do you think it is OK for a government to make people give to the poor under the threat of imprisonment?
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Correlating welfare and infant mortality rates is statistically an impossible mission. The number of factors involved that make up a society will always make any result questionable, but the most pressing concern is the lack of control to any analysis. One cannot take the numbers for before and after to test for welfare influence on a single country because the data just isn't available. I accept that countries with welfare may generally have better mortality rates, but the causal factor is more likely the lack of medical infrastructure. And medicine can be dispensed with or without a welfare system.
Correlation does not mean causation. I'm prepared to concede that welfare states have generally lower infant mortality rates, but I am not obliged to accept that welfare is the reason for such.
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So a "working homeless" is a guy who lives in a cheap hotel and has a job. What would we prefer here? The same guy to be living in a cheap hotel and not working?
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Russell:
"Institutionalised generosity" met my individual need for food and shelter -- or more importantly, those of my young family -- during the brief period in which I claimed an unemployment benefit. I have since repaid that many times over in taxes, and I see that as a reciprocal obligation.
You think people are obliged to give to those in need .. I don't.There is evidence that such transfers have a slight positive impact on GDP per capita, and a very significant impact on absolute poverty rates. Short version: in states with welfare systems, far fewer children suffer.
I'll have a look at wikipedia tonight. :)And, for that matter, die. The countries with the lowest infant mortality rates are all welfare states.
I'm sure they are also the ones with the most well established health systems as well.People in welfare states also tend to have homes. By comparison, the US, especially in the wake of welfare reform, has not only high rates of working poor, but the highest rate amongst developed nations of the working homeless.
What, on Earth, is a working homeless? Who qualifies to make up that demographic? As noted there is nothing wrong with being poor. I think it would be much better to be working and poor than not working and poor. -
Blake, I can only assume you mean the church as an organisation. I prefer Che Tibby's analysis of what the church is.
It doesn't matter who is handing out freebies people will always become accustomed to living as comfortably as they can. And if they know they can rely on some organisation for support then they will live up to that.
I think it is important to make a distinction between a gift when one sees a need and a "benefit" like the dole. It should be clear that at times the two might look very similar. But the important distinction is the motivation of the giver and the expectation of the receiver. When the giver is generous of his own volition there is little chance of resentment forming.
It should also be made very clear that you are again playing the sympathy card. Institutionalised generosity does not address individual needs. It sets conditions that people must meet. When a person gives out of charity they are able to directly meet a need.
I do not accept any charge that removal of benefits is bound up with a lack of compassion. Quite the opposite. If people here were prepared to engage in discussion rather than threats, taunts, invasions of privacy, diversions and vulgarity then perhaps that misconception could be addressed.
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More :think: ing.
I'd probably keep welfare much as it is. Start off gradually by denying new unemployment benefit applicants. Anyone who is on a benefit can stay on, but nobody else can get in.
Shut off student loans and benefits in a similar way....
I'd want any existing contracts honoured, of course. That'd do for a little breathing room. Taxes can come down. The economy can breathe a little better.
What would be wrong with that? Other than there being a few people wanting to beat me up for some reason...
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:think:
Well, DeepRed said something useful, I suppose...
Red, I wouldn't advocate eliminating welfare overnight. That just wouldn't work :)
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Well, no-one said it would be easy :)
I'm sure that some people, threatened with having to work to live, would choose to steal instead. But then again thievery is rampant anyway. Same thing with starvation. People go hungry with or without social welfare.
There are many other social issues and they all seem to have a common source. Humanity has a problem. In this case poor people are stealing. Instead of addressing the problem they write a solution into law. That "solution" is usually state santioned regulation of the problem. So the answer to the problem of people stealing is for the government to steal on their behalf.
There is no other rational way to view a welfare state. Taxation of a population in order to pay poor people is state sanctioned theft. It's a dodge of the real issue. The real issue is not poverty, but our reaction to people in poverty. There is nothing wrong with being poor, but there might well be something wrong with our reactions to the poor.
The solution is not to agree that theft is the only answer. A real solution requires hard work and responsibility. It requires sound education and people willing to stand up for what is right.
A welfare state is easy to defend. You can continue playing the sympathy cards, the consequent cards and the "fundy fruitloop with a website" card. Or you can address the issue with an "open mind".
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Actual facts and logic, Russell? Like the actual fact and logic that I'd have to take a pay-cut when it wouldn't actually be a pay-cut? Is that one of the actual facts and logics you was referring to...?
You think I'm playing victim? I think it is only fair to warn people about what they might face when sharing a perfectly reasonable opinion.
So, please, stop threatening me with bannings and post deletions and engage your brains for a moment. Ending welfare motivates people to find jobs like paying them to do nothing does not. The economy benefits when people work. And more people motivated to work means more gets done. Ending taxation aimed at providing benefits means employers have more resources to aim at employing people.
So far, for what claims to be a thinking man's forum, this place has done little but dodge.
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Matthew. What you posted were disagreements with my opinion. You're entitled to those opinions, I suppose, but to call them sound logical refutations is assuming evidence you simply do not have.
A) There is more to the situation than simply switching a bunch of people from not looking for work to looking for work. Simple subtraction does no justice to the revolution that would come about were benefits to be removed.
For one thing you fail to mention a whole raft of WINZ workers who would be looking for more employment. There are several other factors you also have not commented on.
B) A cheaper workforce does not mean I will have to take a pay-cut. Why would it?
Because my responses to you are short and sweet does not mean they do not exist. However when the responses of a threatening, abusive or generally silly nature far outweigh any genuineness it is far more appropriate (I think) to insist that any further discussion take an appropriate form.
Tony, did you read the Rambo thread? :)