On Mar 26, 3:21*pm, Neil Brooks wrote:
On Mar 26, 12:21*pm, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:







busbus wrote:

That's is exactly the point: these people who were supposed to use the
system to get back on their feet have instead decided to live off of
it for literally generations. *There is no incentive to get off.

Correct. *The last sentence is the most accurate.

True, they know no better. *And maybe THAT is the real problem. *We
keep on giving these people fish whenever they are hungry and never
teach them how to fish nor do we make an environment in which they
even WANT to fish. *They have become a group of circus seals who bark
and get a fish tossed their way. *Not enough to live off of, so they
bark some more, but enough that they don't have any reason to go out
and fend for themselves.

Bull. *They do know better. *You can't exist in the US today without being
exposed to a better way. *The real issue is that there is a class of people
who figure out how to do as little as possible, and to milk systems that
will accomodate their laziness. *That we perpetuate such systems is a big
part of the problem. *It is politcally incorrect to suggest, let alone
legislate incentive to move off of programs.

I'll just ask the question, again:

How many -- as a % -- comprise this "class of people?"

The incentive? *They don't make squat.

If the majority of these people -- for argument's sake (since I don't
know) live in urban areas -- then ... what opportunities should they,
instead, take?

For generations, the opportunity available to those without a trade, a
skill, or a college education was always ... a factory job.

That allowed ... potentially ... millions of people to move into
middle class status.

But ... how's the state of those jobs, these days -- say, over the
last decade?

My understanding is that they are all but totally gone -- the victims
of offshoring virtually our entire manufacturing sector.

So ... what *should* these people do? *Is it reasonable to expect that
-- without a serious, well-funded, focused, and "industry-aware"
training program -- these very people are going to buy Mary Kay
franchises? *Start the next Intel? *Become e-commerce entrepreneurs??

These people -- based on my theory (largely urban) are beset by the
worst public education infrastructure in our country.

What *should* they do??

I've met LOTS of people, in my lifetime, who have been on Welfare, at
some point. *While I don't claim to have known anything NEAR a
representative sample size, I've NEVER met even ONE who espoused
contentment with this situation, or who actions indicated that they
were interested in continuing to be recipients of government
subsidies, or that they wished to raise their children to do so.

I think it's simply a convenient and self-serving argument to talk
about the inter-generational welfare notion, the apocryphal story of
the "welfare queen in her new Cadillac and fur coat, with the acrylic
nails," etc., etc.

What I DO see is articles about industries that move into blighted
areas, and are BESIEGED by eager applicants, desperate to get jobs.


It isn't only manufacturing. Ever try to get or keep a job in IT
these days? How about customer service? How about accounting,
even?

You are making a good point BUT by handing government they keys to
everything and give them the power to suck more and more money out of
the hands of the people who happen to be making money is making it
even worse because it is getting harder and harder to own a small
business and as those small businesses fold because of costs (which
includes this new law), you will have more unemployment.

I know of a heck of a lot of people who have lost jobs for many, many
months. They have been able to scrap by only by taking temporary and
part-time jobs and tightening their belts and whatnot. But there IS a
difference: EDUCATION. The people I speak of have at least their high
school diploma and, usually, a BS. In a couple instances, they have a
Masters. They have invested into their education.

That is something that is not done in your inner city neighborhoods
you speak of. And, to be quite frank, I gave you a person's thoughts
who works in such neighborhoods and those kids and young adults view
the streets as exciting and have given up on education. Those who
happen to live long enough and have half a brain left realize whenever
it is too late that they have screwed up.

I think you and I are talking about a whole different type of people.

Now answer me another thing: Are there more people on government
assisted programs now or, say, forty years ago? I do not have number
but my guess is more--a lot more. And not just sheer numbers because
the population has grown in the past forty years; I am saying that the
percentage has been steadily increasing and the ones who STAY on it
have been increasing, too.

In other words, what we are doing IS NOT WORKING. And throwing more
money at it is like ****ing in the ocean. You need to change the
attitude of the people who are in these positions.

You also need to change the mindset of the rest of the people in this
country. Too much of this population have fallen for the Wal-Mart and
Home Depot lies that the cheaper a product or service is, the better
for you, the consumer. All Wal-Mart wants is to drag this country
down to the point that the only place you can shop at is Wal-Mart.
They would like nothing more than to have a country-wide company
store.

Whenever you buy something at Wal-Mart, a vast majority of your dollar
spills into Arkansas and, eventually, over to China. Home Depot is
the same way. Ditto Lowes and Target and all of those big box stores.

in fact, I just brought my mother to a doctor's appointment this
morning and we passed by a local grocery chain called Giant Eagle.
She started to rant that she never shops there because they are so
much more expensive than Wal-Mart and you would be silly to shop
there. My response was that I always go to Giant Eagle. I know I pay
more but I also know a number of people who work there. They all own
decent homes--no McMansions but not bad--some in my neighborhood.
They pay taxes on that house and they contribute to my local community
by paying those taxes and shopping there and using services from
there, etc. They are being paid just enough to do that, not minimum
wage/minimum hour jobs that cannot sustain an individual let alone a
family.

As far as people on welfare flocking for jobs whenever a company moves
into a neighborhood, that is not totally correct. The people who
flock there are those who know how to work and want to work and have a
sense of responsibility. Case in point: I have a very good friend who
owns an insulating company that specializes in insulating existing
structures--and there are a lot of older homes in my area that have
zero insulation. He has historically had three crews of four guys and
five or six in the office but things have been bad for a while now, so
he is down to two crews. He pays decent, around $14/hour for a job
that requires no education or special training, really. Now I am not
saying you can live high on the hog for $14/hour but that is a lot
more than a person at Wal-Mart makes.

He has a hell of a job holding on to the guys he hires. They are more-
or-less lazy and do as little as possible and then get ****ed off at
stupid little things and quit, right in the middle of a job in the
middle of a day many times.

So...we need to do something to change the attitudes of a lot of
people. You don't do that by throwing money at something and turning
your back.

I seriously think about this at times: If this generation of Americans
was faced with what our fathers and grandfathers faced in World War
II, would we be able to prevail? Would we have the wherewithal to
defeat a foe? Would we be able to overcome and work together? I am
more in doubt of that every single day. There is absolutely no unity
in this country and "The Great Uniter" has made the country more
polarized than it has ever been. He is proposed to be this
generation's Lincoln but if Abe acted like this guy back in the 1860s,
there would be no United States left--and it may be gone in a
generation or two at this rate.