On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:23:51 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Sep 15, 4:35Â*pm, Vic Smith wrote:
On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:33:50 -0700 (PDT), "



Any stats you have above are bogus - too many variables in how
unemployment and poverty stats are tallied.

Figures you'd reject official measures of poverty
in favor of just making crap up as you go.


Haven't made anything up.
No sense throwing out figures that can be interpreted different ways.
The sure thing is unemployment increases poverty.
Can't be disputed.

I was poor when I didn't have a job. Â*Don't know if I was counted.
That was in 1983.
Record unemployment and record poverty level under Ronald Reagan.

It was not record unemployment, nor record poverty. For
example the poverty rates in the 1950's were far higher.
And that was a time when better paying jobs were
available to the uneducated and unskilled.


Except for the depression, Reagan oversaw the highest unemployment.
I predict Obama or the next President will get the new record.
The 50's was a different world in America. Still mostly rural.
You'd expect poverty to be high. I was running around naked in the
Ozarks, bathing in a washtub filled with bucket well water, and going
to town once a week with grandpa to get ice for the icebox.
Wasn't that unusual either.
Only ate meat once or twice a week.


Unemployment did briefly rise under Reagan as he
cleaned up the mess he inherited. Arguably as bad
as what Obama inherited. Inflation out of control,
high interest rates, and a stalling economy. The
difference which you obviously missed is that by
this time in the Reagan administration his economic
turnaround was well under way and new jobs were
being created. When he took office, unempoyment was
as 7.5%. When he left office unemployment was at 5.4%, inflation was
sharply reduced and interest rates had been cut in half. America's
respect in the world was restored
and he won the cold war without firing a shot.


He didn't win the cold war. Myth.
The Polish Pope, Solidarity, VCR's and the natural advancement of free
world technology crumbled the Soviets.
The old guard died off, and the new leaders saw they couldn't keep the
people locked up. Unsustainable system in a modern world.
Reagan just happened to be there.
I saw the first crack appear in the '70's when Carter's pressure led
the Soviets to allow Jews to emigrate.
The first time in Soviet history that external pressure affected
internal policy.
And I had family behind the curtain, in Poland.
Watched it happening in slow motion.
You go ahead and believe that Reagan myth is it suits you.
The Reagan recession was just that, a recession.
This ain't a recession. It's a sea change.
The powers that be are just catching on to that.
They are too dumbstruck to figure out solutions.
Especially when solutions run against the grain of their experience.


Data that economists use. What data
to you have on poverty?

You can easily find the poverty/unemployment stats.
I'm not playing the "cite" game with somebody who wants to argue.
Just leads to endless citing and cherry-picking.
I don't care if you don't like that.


What I called a myth is that most poverty is caused
by a lack of jobs and that jobs being available will
cure it.


That entirely depends on level of unemployment.
I suspect most poverty in the depression was caused by joblessness.
And no, I don't want to argue about that.
If you reject it, just call it a myth.



I'd rather they were working and paying $300 for the A/C, or going
without, than living off public money.

Follow your ideas and we all will be paying $300 for that
AC and most of those in poverty will still be in poverty.
Poverty was much higher in the 1950's for example
when the makeup of the economy was more to your
liking, ie good jobs for the uneductated and unskilled.


Different world in the 50's. Almost stone age.
Hell, being cross-eyed might get you a lobotomy.
You can decide what the breakeven point is on the A/C.
Pay $300 for yours and less taxes for welfare, or $100 for yours and
the taxes to buy millions more for welfare recipients.
Not an easy calculation.



Productive work is good for the soul, and the economy.
Doing it your way just leads to more people on welfare.
That's exactly what's happening right now.
And it's going to get worse.
So don't complain when you get it your way.

What good jobs would your propose for people who
are uneducated and unskilled?


Factory jobs even in automated plants have plenty of work for the
unskilled, and opportunities to get skilled.
The multipliers add up big time from support logistics and salaries
spent giving other companies business.
Every job counts. Machine operators, fork-lift drivers, floor
sweepers, and the guy running the lunch truck outside at noon.
They all feed the service industries.
But when you send 50,000 factories to China in the last decade
all that is gone.
I won't vouch for that figure. It's the one bandied about.

Milton Friedman

I'd like to see the reference for that claim.


Wiki Smoot-Hawley.




So outfits like the Heritage Foundation are fighting a losing battle
anyway.
America will always take care of the poor to prevent rioting and
subsequent "socialism," and just become more of a welfare state until
jobs come back.

I'll bet you bitched big time when the Republican Congress
forced Clinton to "end welfare as we know it." Yet that
change which was supposed to be a disasster according
to the libs was an overwhelming success. It helped end
30 years of having one generation after another on the
welfare dole.

You lost that bet. What is you don't understand when I say I don't
like welfare?



Poverty went from 13% to 15% from this recession. Â*Clearly,
linking the vast majority of poverty to the availability of jobs
is nonsense.

You sound just like Al Gore, with his Smoot-Hawley.
Nobody mentioned "vast majority" except you.
Haven't I already taught you that your Al Gore bull**** don't work
with me?


I thinnk it's obvious that Al Gore's thinking and party
affiliation is a lot closer to yours than mine.


You, Clinton, Gore and Bush are the great believers that $100 A/C's
and high home ownership solves all problems.
I'm the guy that thinks everybody who can work should be working
instead of collecting welfare.
Simple as that.


Google it. Â*As I recall you can find state stats on Walmart, Kroger,
et al Â*employees on Medicaid and stamps.
I remember seeing it for Ohio and maybe Alabama.

In other words, despite throwing around claims, you
have no data.

It's easily found. Don't know why you don't know it already.


You never saw me say anything good about Obama.
He's just another Wall Street yuppie to me.
Like you, he thinks free trade is good because people can buy cheap
goods, even if it's put them on welfare.
Surrounded himself with Bush people.

Now that shows how out of touch you are.
Where exactly did that fact come from?
Names of those Bush people please.


Bernacke on one side and Geithner on the other qualifies as
surrounding for me.
Then you have other pure Wall Streeters like Daley, Summers, Rubin,
Immelt, et al, working in advisory capacity.
Nothing much changed from Bush or Clinton.
Not much difference between Bush and Clinton, except Bush was a
warmonger.
The last good Dem President was Dick Nixon who wanted national health
care, then Ronald Reagan, who actually forced the Jap car makers to
locate plants here.
The gov has been run by Wall Street for a long time, getting in high
gear with Clinton.
All the bubbles have burst, and too many of the production jobs are
gone.
We'll see when and if the economy can turn around.
Unlike you I'll never cleave unto political parties or be repelled
from them because of jerking knees.
I always look at policy.
There's no difference between R's and D's except at the margins.
Wall Street money runs the show.
The R's will cave to welfarism as readily as the D's when Wall Street
and unrest tells them to. Otherwise they'll just be kicked out.

--Vic