On 2/5/2012 6:17 PM, Schweik wrote:
On Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:25:29 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/4/2012 11:41 PM, Deucalion wrote:
On Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:34:33 -0800, Gunner
wrote:

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:48:05 +0000 (UTC), Chakolate
wrote:

"Joan F wrote in
:

He says he would patch up any holes in the safey net but he endorsed
Cantor's budget which slashes Medicaid and other programs like food
stamps. I don't think existing services are all that good, otherwise
there would not be so many homeless.



I hate it when people talk about the safety net as though it's a solution
to poverty. We can spend a lot of dollars 'helping' people, but the real
low-cost solution is to make sure they become useful members of society.

Chak


The War on Poverty was declared in 1964...and either we have a genious
for an enemy..or our generals are utter ****wits. And I belive the
latter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty

48 years we have been fighting that SOB..and we are losing ..and losing
badly.

One would think its time to change generals and battle plans..no?

The war on drugs actually began in the early 20th century and we see
how well that has been going.



In 1900 there were a whole lot of poor people in the United States. In
the year 2000 there are a lot of poor people in the United States. So
whatever has been done to change that it hasn't had much effect. The
economic system is capitalism. If in the "richest" free market country
in the world you still have as many poor as you did a hundred years ago
what does that say about the ability of capitalism to provide a decent
lifestyle to everybody?

After 100 years it seem clear that in capitalism you have a relatively
small number of people who get a very large slice of the economic pie
and a very large number of people who get a very small slice of the pie.
So what's that mean? It's good to be in the small percent of folk who
have all the assets but life is crappy for most everyone else? And
that's the best economic system we can come up with? Obviously it is for
the few that are well off but why do the rest put up with it?

Hawke

So what do you advocate? Hiring poor, uneducated people for jobs that
they are not qualified for? Someone who is barely literate as a brain
surgeon?

I suggest that it would be far more beneficial to research why these
"poor" are not taking jobs? It seems very strange that the U.S. in
inundated with Mexicans taking unskilled, low paid work while there
are so many poor Americans who remain poor.

Perhaps instituting a new relief system based on the old WPA concept,
that ultimately employed approximately 1/3rd of the nation's
unemployed, and paid them a salary for their work, rather than the
current programs which essentially pay the poor to remain poor.

(Or perhaps that would be cruel and unusual punishment to actually
require people to work)

cheers,

Schweik



The problem is that I don't have the solution to the problem. I don't
know anyone who does but I do know what we're doing isn't going to work
so we better start trying some new stuff.

The first thing in getting out of the hole is to stop digging. So we
need to quit what has gotten us here and start trying new ideas. There
are some things we can do but we don't seem to have the political will
to do them. The power of the status quo is immense in this country and
they will fight to keep things as they are. After all, things are really
great here for some people. I don't think they want us to change
anything, do you?

Hawke