Finding Themselves On Third Base and Thinking They Hit a Triple
The White American Dream Game
Just listening to the level of noise coming from some posters complaining about low income workers, how they caused their own predicament, and this is why they are unable to move upwards on the ladder of mobility. Low income and unskilled workers do not work hard enough, they did not study hard in school or they chose silly subjects, they chose this path in their lives, etc. The list of excuses used by those who got a better start in life over those who did not and are struggling is endless. One AB commenter’s complaints to progressives:
– Is it not greedy on YOUR part to demand a piece of what others have earned?
Why can she not learn a more skilled trade?
I have also seen Ph.D.’s doing unskilled labor. They chose to study what they wanted to study, not what would earn them a living. But those who DID study what would earn them a living should be forced to support those who studied what they WANTED instead?
No-one is FORCING them to do anything. They chose the course of their lives. They studied useless things, or perhaps did not study at all. They slacked off in school, perhaps, and so did not take advantage of the education offered to them.
And I don’t know whether you’ve toured the world much, but we don’t exactly have “degrading poverty” in this country. Is there any other country where the primary health problem of the poor is OBESITY? Our “poor” people eat TOO MUCH!!
The UN defines “extreme poverty” as living on less than $1 per day. How fat can you get on $1 per day?
– ‘[There] is no reason the lady who cleans your rest room should not make as much money for her time as you do for yours… if you had to spend the time cleaning the rest room THAT would be the opportunity cost of the job.”
There is a very good reason she is paid less per hour than I am — just about anyone can clean a bathroom, and very few people can do my job. It takes years of training and experience to be able to do what I do. The training is expensive and less than one-third of those who qualify to start the training finish it.
How much training does it take to clean a bathroom?
Some people’s time really is worth more. Even those who clean bathrooms. If one person does it better and faster than another, shouldn’t the faster and better employee be paid more? Should the computer programmer who is slower and makes more mistakes be paid the same per hour as the one who writes twice as much code with half as many errors? Should the grocery clerk who gets through 30 items per minute be paid the same as the one who does only ten?
If everyone were paid the same hourly wage, why would anyone go through the time, trouble, and expense of getting specialized, difficult training?
– The first problem with the individual income tax is the blatant unfairness of taking more from those who earn more. If one man works 60 hours a week, and two others work 30 hours each at the same hourly wage, our government takes more from the one than from the two. How is that fair?
One man studies hard in school, and another does not. The one gets a good education and a better-paying job than the one who did not. How is it fair to tax the hard-working person at a higher rate?
It is not a matter of taking what I earn, but taking it to give to those who do not earn it. Our public policies punish good choices and reward bad choices.
It is pretty well known there are impediments for those with lower incomes to being successful in America and gaining upward mobility traction. Those who start in the lowest quintile of income have a greater probability of sliding backwards once they have advanced a quintile or two as opposed to those who are born into the higher quintile. Add race to the issue and the likelihood of moving upwards is even more unlikely with a greater probability of sliding backwards. “Understanding Mobility in America,” 2006 Thomas Hertz
Hat Tip: Digsby at Hullabaloo toon ‘o the week American Dream Game
Whitesplaning to Black people.
The way you know it’s all hot air is that these are the very same people continually whining that immigrants are stealing ‘their’ jobs. I would be willing to bet that nearly all the people that write this stuff will piss and moan about the minimum wage, healthcare for the poor, tougher financial regulations, and then suddenly ditch their love of free markets and competition when it turns out that they can’t in fact compete very well for jobs at all. It is an especially sick and twisted form of what Walter Benjamin called a ‘blaming cult’. The sense of satisfaction derives from seeing others suffer the karma of retribution. They have swallowed whole the ideology that is beggaring them.
Reminds me of a comment by Brene Brown re: why it’s impossible to have a useful discussion of race in this country. Because that conversation at some point runs into the fact of white privilege. And that’s where it usually ends.
“It is pretty well known there are impediments for those with lower incomes to being successful in America and gaining upward mobility traction.”
Certainly. But what, exactly, is the nature of those impediments?
Jack,
You.
When I was a kid I always thought how lucky I was to have been born in this country and how lucky I was to have parents who could feed me, clothe me and shelter me not to mention give me a toy or two on my birthday and Christmas. I still feel that way more than a half century later having earned advanced degrees and made a decent if not outrageous amount of money. Some people just do not recognize how good they have had it.
Here’s a howler from Hertz: “An additional six points (14 percent) derive from the fact that the parents’ income predicts the race of the child.”
I always thought the race of the parents predicts the race of the child.
Who knew?
well, since i was the author of the remarks that the writer of the remarks that Run is complaining about was replying to
… please read that carefully, i was NOT the author of the remarks that Run is complaining about…
I would like to say that I was not talking about the impediments that black people face getting ahead.
I was talking about the fact that there are, and always will be, those who do not “get ahead” for reasons beyond their control… including “lack of ability” or “bad choices” (which may have looked like good choices at the time they were made, but circumstances changed.
my objection to the world view of “they deserve their poverty and it is theft to force (tax) me to give them money they didn’t earn”
is that it is an immoral fairy tale that not very nice people tell themselves because all they love in the world is money. they are wrong about the degree of “cooperation” required of all human beings in every situation human beings have ever found themselves in.
only in “capitalism” (which really isn’t about capital at all) do human beings with such an ugly regard for the “least of these” get to tell themselves that “they” (the ugly regard ones) are the superior beings with the “true” morality. in any other society their uncles would have taken them out to the wilderness and left them there…. to find out just how “superior” they are without the help… freely given… of the rest of their “family.”
this person quoted Bible at me… not, I think, because he really cares about the Bible or the Idea behind it, but because having read the thing through his own twisted mind he thought it supported his beliefs.
What he fails to realize is that… whatever he thinks about the religious Idea behind the Bible… the circumstances of a nation of 300 million people are NOT going to be successfully governed by a narrow and literal reference to a few selected passages from a book addressed to people still living in small … essentially family… villages, (though it was addressed to them at a time when they were entering upon the modern world in which it is impossible to know and care about “the least of these” and gave good advice about that…. the parable of the Samaritan.
The Point is that in a country of 300 million people who don’t know each other, laws are made, and taxes are imposed, to make that country succeed in ways that “enlightened selfishness” would fail.
Mr ugly-heart cannot understand that. He is willing, I suppose, to pay taxes for cops and soldiers and stuff he understands, but the idea that the country would have to pay for other things… including what he thinks of as “welfare”… in order to make it possible for even him to have a reasonably comfortable and secure life… cannot enter his mind because all he can see is “his” money going to “someone who did not earn it.” this is a fundamental intellectual and moral failure. it is also what those Bible believers would call a sin if they weren’t so hung up on sex. A sin is an error that makes you sick. It is in fact “in-sanity”… though not of the “brain disease” kind, which is another form of the bad luck that can make a person less “productive” than Mr ugly-heart, but it is no business of his for the government to look for cures to brain disease, or care for those who suffer from it. Or suffer more simply from simple failure to find a niche which the free markets currently reward… but who might, if things change, be exactly those who have the answer to the next economic challenge. Mr Ugly-heart never heard of Michael Faraday, whose family lived on welfare when he was a child, but who invented the science of electricity and magnetism and made everything Mr Ugly-heart makes his money at possible… and did it on a “public” salary.
No, Mr Ugly-heart is just ignorant and stupid… and it all devolves from his ugly-heartedness, which “only in America” (or similar country) could be called “virtue” and celebrated as a “creator of wealth.” Trust me, you can create wealth without forcing people into crushing poverty and being smug about it.
But no, I was not specifically thinking about the struggles of blacks. We, they, have reached the point where their struggles are more or less the same as the struggles of the white poor. This does not mean that racism is not still a problem. It does mean that those of us who want to help them… and the rest of “the least of these” probably need to stop satisfying ourselves with “racism is THE problem.” It’s not. Ugly heartedness is.
Couple of funny thoughts on education:
Ha-Joon Chang wrote in his book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” that all this extra education we pick up nowadays does not make the economy that much more productive. We have to get it because potential competitors in the job market get it. One of his examples: Switzerland with its perfectly efficient an productive economy had only 15% college grads in the workforce in 1990 — now it’s up to 40%.
Berkeley political scientist Martín Sánchez-Jankowski who previously had spent 10 years on the street studying street gangs (Islands in the Street) spent 9 years on the ground in five NYC and LA impoverished neighborhoods. He was surprised to discover that ghetto schools don’t work because too many students (and teachers!) don’t see anything sufficiently remunerative waiting for them in the job market to make it seem worth any special effort (Cracks in the Pavement.
When workers are caught up in a labor market where they cannot in any effective way withhold their labor from ownership to bargain they will be paid pretty close to subsistence no matter how skilled or productive. Ask regional airline pilots. Classic example — right at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution: previously, individual weavers who could bargain on a face-to-face basis with cloth buyers were replaced by 100X more productive steam loom operators who were starved to the point of living on oat cakes, not even able to afford wheat bread, because they had no effective bargaining tool. Right at the beginning of what should have been a wonderful era of progress.
If employees can squeeze — and it is the consumer they are ultimately squeezing — to get all the market will bear and the market wont pay anymore than $5 an hour to clean toilets then there is no sense in arguing about it — the market simply wont pay it (then it’s time for government supplements maybe). But the employees have to be able to test what the market — no matter how much anyone looks down on the unskilled job is willing to pay, then, if the market will pay $15 an hour or more to clean toilets, don’t argue with that either.
(The only truly workable bargaining tool in this day in age is the 70 year, around the world tested — used by the most successful union in this country, the Teamsters, and the most successful economies in the world, continental Europe — legally mandated, centralized bargaining. In case anybody is seriously interested in actually remaking America, economically and politically — or actually interested in seriously remaking.)
A $15 an hour minimum wage would raise Walmart prices 3.5%. How can that be more than they deserve — if the market will gladly pay it. Matter of fact Walmart supports a minimum wage raise (not that high~) because their consumers need more buying power.
3.5%; there’s that number again: that’s how much income share would be shifted from the 55% who take about 90% income share to the 45% who now take 10%. 70 million employees (50% of the workforce — 5% added for the minimum wagers who will get the whole raise) X $8,000 average raise ($4 X 2000 hours) = $560 billion — out of $16,000 billion GDP. Theh money to make the country happy is there.
3,5%? We grow that much every few years!!!
Jack
re “howler” : “predicts” is a term of art among people who use statistics. it means that given the income of the parents you can predict the race of the child without knowing the race of the parents.
whatever kind of education you got to make you able to earn so much money, it seems to have left out a lot that helps the rest of us understand what is going on in the world. I have noticed that ignorance is a great predictor of ugly-heartedness.
But by no means is the correlation perfect. There are many perfectly well informed people who are ugly hearted because they really do like to cause pain to other people. Those are the people who write the books you read.
Denis
I agree with you. but “squeezed” is not a good word to use if you are trying to persuade people to be on your side.
yes, workers need more bargaining power. but if they are thinking in terms of “squeezing” as opposed to just getting a fair wage, they are going to turn into the new boss just like the old boss.
When the well-to-do prescribe strategies of success for the ill-to-do, it is interesting to note that these strategies are softened versions of what a plantation owner would demand of his slaves. All that’s added is the “then” part of the “If … then you would succeed.”
“If… you went to college … then … you could be comfortable like me.”
“Work hard!”
“Don’t complain!”
“Be frugal, live on less!”
“Don’t be so stupid, get training / education!”
“Be honourable and pay your (fraudulently imposed) debts!”
“Have children and focus on raising them to work hard, not complain, pay their debts, etc…”
Who benefits from a class of hard working, uncomplaining, stubbornly honourable workers? When only one player at the poker table plays by the rules, his honour is no virtue.
Noni
Coberly @ 10:40a
Well said!
>>> … but if they are thinking in terms of “squeezing” as opposed to just getting a fair wage, they are going to turn into the new boss just like the old boss. <<<
Sounds good to me. 🙁
What would Jimmy Hoffa say? "Why would you hire us if not to sell your labor for the maximum buck?" He also said: "A union is a business; no crying towels, no long hairs." The most loved union leader in memory (including by me) because he stuck to money, no class war ideology; to getting us paid.
Mucho deniro; mucho deniro. 🙂 <extra wide smile
Greeeed is goood
Indeed, Coberly, an excellent straw-man argument. You did a fine job of building the straw-man and knocking him down.
But either you simply misunderstand me, or choose to be evil toward me to support your immoral positions.
My position is, first, that it is not in the mandate of the United States government to have such social programs. The State government have that authority, and did not cede it to the central government.
Second, God places the burden of caring for the poor on each of us, NOT on the government. (That is why conservatives give more time, money, and blood than liberals do.)
But as far as I can tell (correct me if I am wrong), you do not believe in an omnipotent God. So there is not much point in discussing the Bible with you.
“Second, God places the burden of caring for the poor on each of us, NOT on the government. (That is why conservatives give more time, money, and blood than liberals do.) ”
Religious donations do not count as charity. Though I will admit a tiny % of those donations do actually go to a charity. Usually with a large string attached.
Btw,
You should probably read the Constitution more than your read the bible.
What is interesting is that even the big-government liberals do not put their money where their mouths are. When they do give money, they give to charities, not to the big government they espouse.
I challenge you, EMichael, to find where in the Constitution the States ceded the Power to the U.S. government to give money to individuals.
Perhaps you should read both the Bible and the Constitution.
I am too old to read fairy tales, thanks anyway.
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Jack
I believe in an omnipotent god as much as i believe in anything… which is not very much, but it seems to me the evidence… and i was trained to be a scientist… is rather more in favor of the idea of something like “god” than it is against it. I know there are those who will disagree with me… violently.
One of the reasons i am disposed to believe in that god which it is said that Christ talked about is that his prescriptions for being sane and creating a sane world seem to me the best … sanest … i have ever read, thought about, and tried to live up to.
You seem to me to have got the exact opposite message from your reading, hearing about, “thinking” about.. that God or Bible that you refer to.
And again, the point I have tried to make to you is that your understanding of the problem of running a 300 million person empire REQUIRES what you call “welfare” in order to succeed. You do not pay taxes because the government demands charity… or even because the liberals win elections… but because the country will not survive without attention to the problems that arise from the natural limitations and failures of “the market.” In other words, you would do better to think of “taxes” and “welfare” as part of “national defense.”
Some day you may be grateful to realize that “taxes – welfare” bring most of us closer to “charity” than we could manage on our own… in this 300 million mostly free enterprise nation-empire. It is my opinion that Christ recommended “love your neighbor” just as the jews before him did, not “so much” out of kindness to the neighbor as out of kindness to you… and certain knowledge that no society, no state, can endure long without practicing it, both as individuals, an as a matter of state — tax supported — policy.
i don’t know what happened to you as a child that makes it so hard for you to understand this, but normal human beings begin to realize it about the age of six and pretty much have it worked out by the time they are teen agers. That is a matter of science, not religion, or “liberal” ideology.
I call it the “sister got the biggest piece of burfday cake” syndrome. Oddly enough both conservatives and liberals suffer from it. Conservatives because they “have” and don’t want any of it taken away, liberals because the “have not” and think they can get it by “demanding” it.
Please form a line for throwing brickbats at me. Liberals on the left, of course, and conservatives on the right.
The is the WHY of the Constitution, not the WHAT. No Powers are delegated to the U.S. government in the Preamble.
Try again.
my apologies for the poor writing above. i think it is good enough to let stand and those who want to understand it will probably see through my poor grammar and elisions of connecting thoughts.
and no matter how well written, would not be good enough to change the minds of those who don’t want to understand.
Jack
and yes, i feel as fully justified in despising what you believe and the people who make you believe it, as i feel justified in despising someone who drives sixty miles per hour in a school zone telling himself that the kids are responsible for looking both ways before crossing the street, and anyway it helps weed out those who are unfit…. too lazy or slow to look out for themselves.
which is what your philosophy amounts to. and why did Ayn Rand accept Social Security benefits?
“[Running] a 300 million person empire REQUIRES what you call ‘welfare’ in order to succeed.”
No, it does not. Gratuitous assertions may be gratuitously dismissed.
But let’s look at the evidence:
Rats, blew the blockquote end tag.
hey Jack you really are a true believer aren’t you? Did you ever stop to think that growth slowed because income inequality started to increase? How sustainable was the growth after Reagan halved taxes on the wealthy while continuing to stick it to the rest of us? How could Clinton have enjoyed such a prosperous term in office when he started it out with a tax increase. How come Dumbya’s tax cuts produced the worst recession since the Great Depression rather than un ending double digit growth? You suggest that caring for the citizens of this country is reserved to the states in the Constitution, nevermind that some states do a better job of that than others–Mississippi traditionally does the worst much to Texas’ relief–and you may be right in a legalistic sense, but I do know that the Feds have the right to regulate commerce and the income inequality in this country has driven that commerce right into the toilet. It is not taxes and burdensome regulations –like not crapping in my drinking water or poisoning the air I breathe- that holds back business, it is lack of demand. See Henry Ford–hardly a liberal ideologue, nor as best I can tell a very empathetic fellow–had it right a century ago. If people do not have money they can not buy his cars. At least not after they max out their credit cards.
Clinton enjoyed such a prosperous term after the Republicans took control of the House and Senate.
Bush did well, too — and after the 2003 tax cuts the deficit declined for four years in a row with very low unemployment. Then the dems took control of the House and Senate (and to his discredit Bush vetoed almost nothing they passed) and the result was an eight-fold increase in the deficit in only two year, sky-rocketing unemployment, and an economy in shambles.
Yes, the U.S. government has the Power to regulate commerce between the Sates. That does not mean that it has Power to regulate everything that might have some vague, tangential, theoretical impact on commerce between the States. Your thermostat does not control your windows, lights, and oven, either, but it regulates the temperature in your house with the Power given to it.
If there is such a lack of demand, why so many imports from China? Why is there a demand for products made there?
BTW, inequality DECREASED during the recession.
You got what you wanted — less income inequality. Happy?
“The is the WHY of the Constitution, not the WHAT. No Powers are delegated to the U.S. government in the Preamble.”
Mind numbingly stupid.
“18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
I hate RWDWs.
Jack
September 17, 2014 6:10 pm
BTW, inequality DECREASED during the recession.
You got what you wanted — less income inequality. Happy?”
AH
“But some are doing better than others. Affluent Americans have seen their incomes rise modestly since the recession ended, though those incomes still aren’t all the way back to their 2007 levels. Everyone else, however, has lost ground. As a result, the earnings gap between the richest Americans and everyone else has widened. In 2010, the top 10 percent of earners made about 4.5 times as much as the median family; in 2013, they earned nearly five times as much. The same story holds in net worth: The top 3 percent of earners held 54.4 percent of all U.S. wealth in 2013, up from 51.8 percent in 2007 and 44.8 percent in 1989. One big reason for this is that richer Americans have benefited far more from the booming stock market. Top earners hold more than half of their assets in stocks, compared to less than a third for the poorest families. Less than half of all families own any stocks at all, even in retirement accounts.”
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/economic-inequality-continued-to-rise-in-the-u-s-after-the-great-recession/
Jack
you describe prosperity increasing during the day of the new deal and keynesian economics, and decreasing since.
how does this support your position. it seems to me to contradict it.
or maybe more to the point: it has nothing to do with the need for a 300 million person empire to look out for the welfare of its citizens if it expects to prosper and defend itself.
hardly a gratuitous assertion.
as for the war on poverty it did pretty well. you don’t see the ground in poverty that you used to see. what you have seen… since 1980, i believe, an increase in inequality and a slowing in the growth of wages of workers… effects of the Reagan revolution, I believe, including, alas, the Democrats deciding they could win more elections if they looked more like Reagan and took money from Wall Street.
You guys are way too nice to this guy.
Make him back up his statements.
Otherwise, ignore him.
He’s not worth hating. Pitying maybe. Ignoring certainly.
AS,
I do not disagree too much, but I think hate is appropriate in his case. I really do hate dishonest people. And by constantly making claims that everyone knows are false(of course without any proof) he is being dishonest.
Take for example his post at 3:26 pm.
He links to the CBPP which is fine(course he ignores all context). Then there is a diatribe that starts with:
“Your “Great Society” programs have had exactly the opposite effect they were supposed to. And your “solution” is more of the same?”
Now, where does that come from? Why no attribution? He certainly did not write it.
That is dishonest.
Not to mention he knows nothing about the subject at all.
The Great Society didn’t work?
http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p60-245.pdf
September 17, 2013
Poverty Rate, 1960-2012
(Percent of population)
1960 ( 22.2)
1961 ( 21.9) Kennedy
1962 ( 21.0)
1963 ( 19.5) Johnson
1964 ( 19.0)
1965 ( 17.3)
1966 ( 14.7)
1967 ( 14.2)
1968 ( 12.8)
1969 ( 12.1) Nixon
Imagine where we would be if the minimum wage was the same now as in 1969.
That’s nice, EMichael, but the Preamble does not actually vest any Powers in the U.S. government.
Do you even bother to read what you post? Try to pay attention. Here are the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. The GINI coefficient went from a peak on 0.411 in 2006 to 0.397 in 2010.
Mr. Coberly, you invited some brickbats from the left. The only thing I mildly objected to while respecting your position was this:
“…it seems to me the evidence … is rather more in favor of the idea of something like “god” than it is against it.”
I have never understood what it is that the god hypothesis explains. It seems to me that an incomprehensible being whose origin is unknown and whose means of accomplishing things is not understood adds no explanatory value at all. There are certainly things about the universe which we don’t understand and probably many that we (humans) will never understand, but it seems clearer to me to say, “I don’t know” about them, rather than “god did it.”
This of course is an argument against the general idea of a god as a philosophically useful concept, apart from any specific evidence. When it comes to hearsay evidence of miracles (which have become very infrequent now that there are cameras and other objective recording devices), to me the well-known propensity of people to tell tall tales is a more convincing explanation. Also, I have seen the cults of Scientology, Moonism, and the Branch Davidians arise in my lifetime, so it is not surprising to me that a few among thousands have managed to grow large and survive over time.
I also like the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Pharisee, “let him without sin cast the first stone”, the Sermon on the Mount, and the admonition to the rich that extreme wealth inequality is bad for society (to put it in modern terms), but much of that also occurred to other humans, such as Buddha and Confucius. It also reminds me of the communist dictum, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. Of course it seems to me that most communists and most Christians only pay lip service to such ideals – partly because they are impractical in many cases. Still, I consider them the source of most of the positions liberals tend to take. On the other hand, I see the hierarchy and authoritarianism that religions like Christianity and Communism evolve into as a source of conservatism. (Not that what I think matters worth a hill of beans in this crazy world.)
That is not the Preamble, AH.
Umm, I am not real interested in a “trend” that lasted a couple of months. And then reversed itself and has gotten worse.
BTW,
No links are common with you. Just like no facts are common with you.
You want to spout your beliefs, you entitled to that. If you expect anyone to treat you decently, you better back it up.
Looks like you really don’t read what you post:
Do you notice the huge drop in the poverty rate before the Great Society programs started? Did that drop continue? No. Since 1970, welfare spending has never dropped below 2% of GDP, yet the poverty rate has not gone down.
Sure looks like Poverty went down after 1970 to me. It did start to increase during Carter’s last year, through all of Reagan’s terms and Senior Bush. It decreased during Clinton’s years and started to increase again during Boy-Bush’s years. Blowing up the economy in 2007/8 plus a lackluster Congress during Obama’s terms has not done much for Poverty. Much of the latest increase in poverty can be laid at the feet of a House who is more interested in austerity rather than the welfare and common good of the constituents of its citizens.
Year………… Pop….Poverty.. %…..President
2013 18/.. 312965 45318 14.5 Obama
2012…… 310648 46496 15 Obama
2011…… 308456 46247 15 Obama
2010 17/.. 306130 46343 15.1 Obama
2010…… 305688 46180 15.1 Obama
2009…… 303820 43569 14.3 Obama
2008…… 301041 39829 13.2 Bush
2007…… 298699 37276 12.5 Bush
2006…… 296450 36460 12.3 Bush
2005…… 293135 36950 12.6 Bush
2004 14/.. 290617 37040 12.7 Bush
2003…… 287699 35861 12.5 Bush
2002…… 285317 34570 12.1 Bush
2001…… 281475 32907 11.7 Bush
2000 12/.. 278944 31581 11.3 Clinton
1999 11/.. 276208 32791 11.9 Clinton
1998…… 271059 34476 12.7 Clinton
1997…… 268480 35574 13.3 Clinton
1996…… 266218 36529 13.7 Clinton
1995…… 263733 36425 13.8 Clinton
1994…… 261616 38059 14.5 Clinton
1993 10/.. 259278 39265 15.1 Clinton
1992 9/… 256549 38014 14.8 Bush
1991 8/… 251192 35708 14.2 Bush
1990…… 248644 33585 13.5 Bush
1989…… 245992 31528 12.8 Bush
1988…… 243530 31745 13 Reagan
1987 7/… 240982 32221 13.4 Reagan
1986…… 238554 32370 13.6 Reagan
1985 ….. 236594 33064 14 Reagan
1984…… 233816 33700 14.4 Reagan
1983 6/… 231700 35303 15.2 Reagan
1982…… 229412 34398 15 Reagan
1981 5/… 227157 31822 14 Reagan
1980…… 225027 29272 13 Carter
1979 4/… 222903 26072 11.7 Carter
1978…… 215656 24497 11.4 Carter
1977…… 213867 24720 11.6 Carter
1976…… 212303 24975 11.8 Ford
1975…… 210864 25877 12.3 Ford
1974 3/… 209362 23370 11.2 Ford
1973…… 207621 22973 11.1 Nixon
1972…… 206004 24460 11.9 Nixon
1971 2/… 204554 25559 12.5 Nixon
1970…… 202183 25420 12.6 Nixon
1969…… 199517 24147 12.1 Nixon
1968…… 197628 25389 12.8 Johnson
1967 1/… 195672 27769 14.2 Johnson
1966…… 193388 28510 14.7 Johnson
1965…… 191413 33185 17.3 Johnson
1964…… 189710 36055 19 Johnson
1963…… 187258 36436 19.5 Kennedy/Johnson
1962…… 184276 38625 21 Kennedy
1961…… 181277 39628 21.9 Kennedy
1960…… 179503 39851 22.2 Eisenhower
1959…… 176557 39490 22.4 Eisenhower
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html Historical Poverty Tables – People Table 2
I would merely suggest that such passion elevates the importance of a liar. To what end, eh?
Better to recognize what I have seen from observing such people close up. To be so oblivious to one’s connection to his countrymen and the entire human family often reveals a rather obvious self contempt. An object of genuine pity.
Yeah, AS. But I am not a pacifist.
I can’t hit him. Which if I met him in public I would certainly do.
BTW, AH.
Never link to sources such as usgovernmentspending.com. Not if you want people to pay attention.
When have we ever done Keynesian Economics?
Keynes idea was to run a surplus in boom years and feed it back into the economy during recessions. But there has to first be an accumulated surplus. Without that, there is nothing to feed back in during recessions. Borrowing money does not work, because that money just comes from somewhere else in the economy.
We certainly have seen a slowing in the growth of wages of workers and the result of the slowing, an increase in inequality. (The inequality necessarily follows the slowing in wage growth relative to GDP growth.) (We can use the “wage share” as a good proxy for this phenomenon. Please correct me if it is not.) The question is, WHY has wage growth lagged GDP growth?
While the Reagan Revolution is a good candidate, the numbers don’t really back it up. Wage share in the US declined from a peak in 1970 to a low in 1985, and then pretty much stabilized until the Clinton era. (No knock on Clinton there — he did have a Republican Congress, and I think Congress has more influence on these things than the president does.) At the end of the Clinton Administration, it was back on the rise. However, as noted in an earlier article here, the wage share took a sharp downward turn in 2001.
As Edward Lambert points on in the comments to that post, it is a global phenomenon, and is probably not attributable to U.S. public policy alone. The slow decline prior to 2001 I can put to improvements in capital — the machinery that the workers use to make and do what they make and do. The bulk of that investment returns to the investor, and less to the individual worker. The post-2001 cliff I do not understand.
AH
You are trying to use Article I, Section 8, which enumerates the Powers given to Congress, to support enacting law “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers” for a phrase in the Preamble which does not delegate any Powers at all.
Got it now?
Even the Supremes, in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, were careful to note that the unemployment insurance statue was constitutional because it could (theoretically) prevent the state-to-state spread of unemployment (the General Welfare of the States). The logical flaw in Helvering is the idea that if the U.S. government can do a thing for a constitutional reason, it can constitutionally do that thing for any reason. (This is why they had to release the Steward decision first, so they had a “precedent” for Helvering ruling.)
Jack is a disruptive jerk. Can we get back talking about things that matter at a lower volume and with less meaningless vituperation? NancyO
Jim V
unfortunately it is almost impossible for you to understand what i mean about “the evidence for god is better than the evidence against” if what you have in your mind is everything the people who claim to be christians say. all i can really say is that i have read better writers than the current crop of atheists and on the whole i find them more convincing. and i find my own experience tends to support or favor the idea that there is some meaning or purpose in all of this.
please note the “tends to.” i don’t think “scientific proof” is possible. On the otherhand I don’tthink that scientific proof of science is possible.
Don’t worry about it. My daughter swears she is an atheist, and she is one of the best “christians” i know.
Well, I’ll put in a better word for Jack than that.
I find his philosophy ugly, and his reasonings tedious. But “disruptive jerk” doesn’t really fit.
And anyway I am still waiting to hear why Ayn Rand took Social Security benefits…. and needed to.
Let’s hope that is tomorrow.
Y’know, Ah. The Preamble is a summary of what the Constitution is. Later on in the Constitution there is the ability to make laws. There is even an ability to change the Constitution.
Fortunately for us, the founders understood that there were neanderthals everywhere(and many at the Convention). And that those neanderthals would grasp at an unchanging system of government and interpret it to mean whatever they wanted. So they put the power to change it in the hands of the people.
I just doubt whether the founders thought the neanderthals would still exist a couple of centuries down the road.
Then by all means, go ahead and change the Constitution. No matter, the Preamble will still remain the WHY, not the WHAT, of the Constitution, and delegates no Power to the U.S. government.
Jack:
I explained much of this earlier to you. It is constitutional for the Gov to tax people and distribute the proceeds of those taxes in a manner it chooses. In case you forgot:
Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises.” The Constitution allows Congress to tax in order to “provide for the common defense and general welfare.”
Jack:
No Congress does not ultimately decide, the courts do such in interpretation of the Constitution . In one case, the courts decided the US/Congress could not tell a farmer what and how much they could grow and in another the courts struck down a drinking age penalty of highway defunding for a state. However, the Roberts Court did impose the PPACA penalty upon those who failed to obtain the minimum specified insurance as a “tax.” Furthermore, if you have read my other post; the DC Court of Appeals drop kicked the last ruling by a panel of three judges on subsidies obtained through Federal Exchanges out of the court in favor of an “en blanc” hearing. 11 justices agreed to the “en blanc” hearing which mostly likely will be in favor of subsidies to those who have obtained insurance through Federal established exchanges. Senator Cruz loses again in his attempts to repeal the PPACA.
Congress can pass legislation and the courts can approve or disapprove on its validity with reference to Article 1. Healthcare is a National interest and citizens having insurance to pay for it. It removes the burden of your not having a means to pay for healthcare from my having to pay for your healthcare after you have gone to the ER and through the backdoor. Even then the Gov paid for that unpaid expense through subsidies to hospitals as gained from tax revenues.
In a way EMichael is correct and you are denying reality as is usual.
Well, given the Roberts court in general, the Gore v Bush decision, and your choice of earlier court decisions, it is a little hard to take Court decisions as the word of God.
They are in fact, what the framers understood them to be… political decisions of a kind somewhat isolated from the passions of their own time, but not perfectly so, and subject to later revisions… for better or worse.
This goes hard on the fundamentalist mind, which can only exist in an environment of complete certainty which it achieves by only attending to those “facts” that, with a little twisting, support its own “necessary” conclusions.
That does not stop the rest of us, of course, from citing the Constitution and the Courts to our own purposes… there is no way to avoid it, as Gore pointed out, short of violent revolution, which would, as of today, leave us worse off than even the Roberts Court… so far.
Meanwhile we can hope these conversations help those less committed to what they already know to form opinions that will lead to a more humane government…
Meanwhile citations to the constitution, the court, or the bible really amount to “this is what i think someone thought who thought about it and may be worth your thinking about” and of course you are free to object strenuously either as to what ‘the court/bible” meant or to insist that the time has come to try a more enlightened understanding of the “law” as it should be.
Well it is a new day and I wonder if Jack really is “Bob” a friend who often refers to me as his “communist friend” although I am not and in many ways I am more conservative than “Bob”. Bob clearly has some issues, but often takes positions or adheres to them because he likes an argument. He often dredges up right wing academics to support his positions despite questionable academic rigor. Some of Jack’s fallbacks are exactly the same as “Bob’s”. Suggesting that Clinton only had a good economy because of the GOP takeover of Congress, that Dumbya lowered the deficit until the Dems got back Congress–comeon Clinton ran a surplus his last few years–which I guess was the sort of Keynesian economics in practice that Jack wants– and Dumbya’s deficits would have been higher than Obama’s except he put his little Iraq fiasco on the credit card rather than in the budget, and his view of federalism. I am waiting for Jack to trot out DeToqueville (sp) for the proposition that Democracy is doomed because once the poor figure out that they can use the election process to take the wealth of the “makers” the game is over. I guess De Toqueville never read “What’s Wrong with Kansas”. Probably never really considered what it means to live in a society (which I understand is where Coberly and Bernie Sanders are coming from), or in the intrinsic value of work to one’s happiness. I actually knew wealthy people when I was kid who were proud to pay a lot of taxes! I do have to say that I think Jim V has it right on that whole omnipotent being issue, but if Jack has any Christian tendencies, I always like the line about it being easier to pass a camel through an eye of a needle than a rich man entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Bottom line, I am not writing off Jack and even if some disagree, you better be aware that he likely spews his nonsense to less discerning folks and supports politicians who will adopt any policy if it means money for them.
Wow, Run, I got raked over the coals for leaving out “Bill of Attainder or”. You left out a whole lot. Let’s look at the ENTIRE clause, shall we?
Certainly, Congress has the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises — for the purposes stated in the following phrase.
Now, you skipped quite a bit of that following phrase: “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”.
The U.S. government was not given the Power to pay your personal debts, to provide for your personal defence, or to provide for your personal welfare.
As for the NFIB v. Sebelius, it is an historical joke. For the first time in history, the Supreme Court overturned a prior Supreme Court decision in the same decision. In Section II, NFIB says that the penalty is not a tax so that the Anti-Injunction Act does not apply, and in Section III D, it overturns that decision and says it is a tax.
The current case that put the kibosh on getting subsidies for policies purchased on the FFM, Halbig v. Burwell, is quite clear. You can read the ACA yourself. The law repeatedly states that the subsidies are for policies “enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. The FFM is, obviously, established by the U.S. government, not a State, and is authorized under Sec. 1103, not Sec. 1311.
That said, I have little doubt that you are correct, and the Supremes will ignore the clear language of the law.
“…the sort of Keynesian economics in practice that Jack wants.”
I do not know that I want; I only know that it has not been tried.
“I always like the line about it being easier to pass a camel through an eye of a needle than a rich man entering the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Indeed, God has been very good to me. Sometimes I worry I’ll get to the Pearl Gates and Peter will say, “But, Jack, you had yours.”
I do understand that everything I have I owe to God. In that sense, Obama is right — I didn’t build this. God gave me talent. God gave me opportunity. God gave me drive.
That is why I choose charity over redistribution. Redistribution means that God already distributed as He saw fit, and you are placing your wisdom above His. You think He distributed talent, opportunity, and drive unfairly, so you would redistribute according to your wisdom.
He calls on each of us to willingly give of ourselves to care for the poor among us. Never does He call on us to take from others to care for the poor.
It is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So why so much envy for the rich?
Some are unkind and lacking in compassion no doubt.
Hmmm. Bill emailed me asking whether I might be interested in joining in in the comments to some new commenter named Jack who claims that the federal income tax is unconstitutional. I responded:
“Huh? Is someone claiming that the federal income tax is unconstitutional? The Sixteenth Amendment … um … well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
“I mean … seriously???”
Bill sent me the link to the thread. I’d read Bill’s terrific post earlier, but not the comments to it. There are, as of now, 57 comments. I read the first two of Jack’s, the second one which reads:
“Indeed, Coberly, an excellent straw-man argument. You did a fine job of building the straw-man and knocking him down.
“But either you simply misunderstand me, or choose to be evil toward me to support your immoral positions.
“My position is, first, that it is not in the mandate of the United States government to have such social programs. The State government have that authority, and did not cede it to the central government.
“Second, God places the burden of caring for the poor on each of us, NOT on the government. (That is why conservatives give more time, money, and blood than liberals do.)
“But as far as I can tell (correct me if I am wrong), you do not believe in an omnipotent God. So there is not much point in discussing the Bible with you.”
At which point I concluded that this guy is parodying the far-right nutcase crowd. He is, after all, claiming in that comment that this country is a theocracy; that federal statutes are not mandates of the United States government, and (presumably) inferentially that the Constitution’s Article I prohibits rather than expressly authorizes federal legislation at the behest of Congress—including legislation to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for … [the] general welfare of the United States”—and that the first clause of the First Amendment expressly prohibits what this guy is claiming is legally mandated: the prescription and proscription of federal legislation as per the Christian Bible (or any religious edict).
As for his claim that religious people give more to charity, might that not be because “charity” includes donations to churches and religious orders irrespective of how those donations are used?
No, this guy is a parodist, not a True Believer.
Beverly, I made no claim that income taxes are unconstitutional. However, Article I, Section 8, does lay out the reasons such taxes may be levied. Giving money to people is not one of them.
No, I am not. Do all of you suffer such reading comprehension problems?
No, that would be the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Actually, it extends to time spent doing service work in the community, giving blood, and putting spare change in the Salvation Army buckets: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730 ‘”Actually, the truth is that they’re giving to more than their churches,” he says. “The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities.”‘
Jack
you won’t get this, but I wish some of my friends would.
The general welfare is a pretty broad category. Jack may choose to believe it does NOT mean money spent directly on “welfare.” Unfortunately for him only a few people agree with him. And fortunately for me, most people understand that money spent on the poor makes the country stronger and richer…including Jack.
By Jack’s reasoning the country could not buy military airplanes from a private company.. because that would be benefiting individuals, you see.
Jack may not agree, and he is free to try to win elections with his point of view. All I can say is that even he won’t iike the results.
Jack, Jack, Jack… you are not made poorer by money spent on the poor. You are made richer. And while you are reading the Good Book, you might contemplate “render unto Caesar..” and “cast your bread upon the waters…” All of these are also subject to “personal” interpretation. It is amazing God could be so careless as to let people like me decide for myself what I think he means. Maybe that’s why he spoke “always in parables… lest the wicked hear, and hearing understand, and turn and i should save them.”
and Jack, you still haven’t told me why Ayn Rand got Social Security benefits, and why she needed them. Or how you benefited from Michael Faraday’s family getting welfare.
Private charity just won’t do the job.
What Jack believes about welfare is immaterial. It is only his belief and not fact. Its constitutionality has been already decided. Whether he likes it or not, welfare is constitutional. His only recourse is a constitutional amendment.
Go for it, Jack!
You’re really good at putting up straw-man arguments. Since Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the Power “To raise and support Armies”, “To provide and maintain a Navy,” and “To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia”, Congress can certainly purchase military airplanes for that purpose, even if some individuals benefit from such purposes, that individual’s personal benefit was not the reason for the purchase.
But you do bring up an interesting point. If Congress can do a thing, such as purchase airplanes, for a constitutional reason, can it do that thing for ANY reason? For instance, we agree that Congress has the constitutional Power to authorize military purchases of aircraft for the Army. Is it then constitutional for the U.S. government to buy such aircraft because the company owner is a big campaign donor?
Our Constitution spells out very clearly which of Caesar’s Powers the States ceded to the U.S. government.
And why is that? Do you think We The People are too selfish, ignorant, and stupid to donate sufficiently and to the “right” causes?
True. But have you actually read the Helvering decision? You should. It is most enlightening what bollocks the Supremes can come up with when faced with a court-stacking threat.
Jack, I assume it is part of your parody to claim that anything included in the annual federal budget appropriations statutes that is not listed explicitly in Art. I, sec. 8, is therefore prohibited by the Constitution. The Founding Fathers, for all their prescience, failed to mention gas and oil industry subsidies and most of the other budget items that wingers themselves ensure are included in the appropriations bills each year. So even the Koch brothers would dispute your constitutional analysis.
So, it’s a real safe bet, would the Chamber of Commerce.
It advances your claim not one whit to quote the Tenth Amendment, since the dispute is what powers the federal government has, not whether the federal government can exceed the powers it has.
Correct.
Also correct. I consider such subsidies to be unconstitutional (and economically harmful, too, but our congresscritters only care about the economy of their campaign funds).
Bev,
I am always envious of people with the control you show by calling Jack a parodist.
EMichael:
Jack is more of a bigot and a racist with his views.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, EMichael. LOL.
Bigot? Racist? When did I even mention race, except to note that Social Security and Medicare are worse for Blacks because they tend not to live as long (so collect less in benefits)?
I don’t think Jack is a bigot or racist based on what he has said, anyway. I think he is selfish and self centered. I think he does not have much compassion for his fellow man. I don’t think he understands what it is to be poor and beaten down. I don’t think he understands the difference between a handout and a hand up. But none of that makes him a bigot or racist. For the most part, he has been polite and civil to all, some of whom have not been particularly polite and civil to him.
He believes what he believes. The beauty of beliefs is that they require neither facts or truth. In fact they are often held despite facts and truth to the contrary.
Jack
while you’re on about the Constitution, what is your take about “a standing army”?
the only straw man here is you. but i agree that reading your comments as calling for a theocracy is a bit of a a “free association” unsupported by anything you said. but there are people not far from here that if i said “goddam” would accuse me of being a right wing christian.
Jerry Critter
I agree with you. I haven’t seen any racism in Jack’s remarks. And if I have not been civil to him it’s mostly because that’s the way i talk to everybody. Even Duchesses. I don’t think I have said anything that you didn’t say in the comment I am here addressing, but I may have said it with less manners…. i have seen too many people with nice manners really harming people without ever saying a harsh word to have much respect for “manners” as opposed to “kindness.”
In Jack’s case, I think the kindest thing I could do for him is make him stop and think why nobody don’t like him. But I’m sure he has an answer for that.
Jack
the Constitution means whatever the current Supreme Court says it means. That is just a fact of life. You were not consulted. Fortunately so far neither have your ideological friends… but they are gaining on us.
I would like to call your attention to “facts of life.” We live in America in 2014 and have to deal with the problems of the present, informed by the ideas of 1789, no doubt, as they have evolved and been interpreted over 200 plus years. There was a time when the Constitution meant that a black man, as property, had no right to sue for his freedom (from having been carried into a state where slavery was illegal). Even Lincoln could not just decide that the Court was wrong… he had to obey the law. Fortunately… for our souls… the states righters of the time got carried away and gave Lincoln the opportunity to do the right thing.
But we do not live in a country informed by your ideas… so far… and your “interpretation” of what the Constitution means is just a fantasy, fairy tale, paranoid delusion… none of which i say to be mean or put you down, but to give you some perspective. MY interpretation of the Constitution is just a fantasy… delusion. That’s the way life is.
This won’t do you any good unless you can recognize the difference between reality and your construction of it and find something better to do with your life. I think it would be good for your soul… but that’s just MY interpretation.
I wouldn’t worry about your ideas so much if they did not tend to cause great harm to people, and my fear that you really don’t give a damn about anything but your money.
Nowhere does the Constitution forbid a standing army. It does, however, discourage it in the two-year maximum for appropriations for that purpose. No such restriction was put on appropriations for the Navy or the Militia (which, BTW, is us, unless you are older than I think you are).
That said, I do think our current military is bloated. We have about 1.3 million people on active duty (another 800,000 reserve), but our “tip of the spear” is only about 70-100 thousand.
Meanwhile, the police themselves are trying to become that “standing army” that is “perilous to liberty.”
In the Federalist Papers (24), it was presumed that the two-year appropriations limit would be “a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without evident need.” So much for that idea. Instead, we are more likely to go looking for a “need.” Still, the author recognized a need for some standing army, though why it is not guarding our borders now as it was then, I do not know.
I, too, think there is a need for a standing army, but not one of 1.3 million people. (I am lumping all services together, there.)
Jack:
Time to rein you in to the topic on hand. I would ask you remain on topic. I was serious with what I said about hijacking a thread which I will enforce here or other places as well if need be. Thank you for doing so.
Because I believe in GIVING to my fellow man, instead of TAKING from him?
A handout is welfare. A hand up is charity.
Welfare is based in covetousness and theft. Charity is based in love.
You’re right there. That’s how we get such ridiculous rulings as Helvering and NFIB. Logic is thrown out the window, and they rule however they want.
And we have States, too. They are not under the restrictions that the U.S. government is, because it is the States that created the U.S. government and ceded to it those Powers they deemed appropriate. They can add more at any time. Look at Medicaid — managed by the States. The ACA Exchanges — the States. Some States had such plans before the ACA. And they are welcome to do so.
I submit that your ideas tend to cause great harm to people. Heck, that was the whole point of the Minimum Wage — to price Blacks out of the market. Before that, the Black unemployment rate was lower than it was for Whites. Congratulations — mission accomplished. And it keeps Blacks down, too. If you can keep them off the bottom rung of the ladder, they won’t be able to climb up. Keep them dependent on the government, and they will keep voting for Big Government. (That was the point of Gun Control, too — to keep the newly-freed Blacks from getting guns to protect themselves. Well, that’s worked out well, too — the law-abiding Blacks in the cities are completely unable to protect themselves so crime is rampant. Well done.) What of the disincentives to marriage that our welfare system has built into it? The result — more children born out of wedlock and growing up in poverty without a father. And that’s WITH the million+ children killed every year before they are born.
Your road is paved with Good Intentions.
Jack
once again, i see i can’t win. but just for the record, Jesus said “render unto Caesar..” before the U.S. Constitution was written (you can look it up). You may be sure that Caesar’s taxes were not limited to pay for the enumerated powers.
And since Jesus said “you cannot serve both God and Mammon” we are entitled to suspect that “render unto God that which is Gods” was not about money.
once again, your “facts” and impressive scholarship all serve your ONE IDEA which is to keep “your” money out of the hands of the undeserving poor.
you need some education.. or exorcism,
Cob,
IN very limited circumstances I am in favor of the death penalty.
This is one of them.
Jack says – “A handout is welfare. A hand up is charity.
Welfare is based in covetousness and theft. Charity is based in love.”
I rest my case. Your response is all about you and has nothing to do with the recepient. Selfish and self center seems about right.
Could we please just change the title of this post to The Jack Show?
Honestly.
So in your view, it is selfish to GIVE to the poor out of one’s own pocket, and to encourage others to do the same, but is it NOT selfish to TAKE from others to give to the poor?
So everything the U.S. government does with your tax money is OK with you? You really believe that the States gave the U.S. government the Power to tax you for any reason whatsoever? Is there no spending by the U.S. government that you think is unconstitutional?
Just waking back up this morning to add:
The official federal poverty line aught to be indexed for increasing lack of relation to reality year after year and decade after decade. It is a mid 50s formula adopted in mid 60s: three times the price of an emergency diet (dried beans only; no expensive canned please!).
This yields an official government poverty line of about $20,000 a year for a family of three — and a poverty level of about 14% of our people.
Using the realistic basket of needs charts from the MS Foundation book Raise the Floor ( table 3-2, p. 44), after adjusting for inflation since publication, I get a minimum needs line for a family of three of nearly $50,000 a year if they have to pay for their own health care — and when I worked this out a few years back — a percentage of families below this realistic minimum needs line of between 18% and 37% depending on how many had to pay for their own health care.
An understanding of this (non-official, non-federal) reality is why so many programs are now means tested for multiples of the official poverty level — and why you don’t see the official figures quoted much anymore.
Jack
for what its worth, i don’t see you as “hijacking” the thread. “hijacking” seems to have become the bear word for “disagrees with me” or perhaps “writes a lot that i disagree with.”
i actually have some sympathy for that point of view… i certainly have had to deal with my share of commenters to my posts who disagreed with me and ran on and on and on..
you do not, in my estimation, run on and on beyond what is required to respond to comments addressed TO you. but your answers don’t seem to be getting either of us anywhere.
but i would suggest that you give it up for now… if only for your own sanity. you are not getting anywhere and you really need a chance to rest and reflect, if that is possible.
people here don’t agree with you, and don’t like you… i am really sorry about that… i think you should give it a lot of thought… but what you think is “logic” (or what they think for that matter) won’t help you. you just need to expand your horizons and see if you can understand the “meta-logic” (if i may) of why they think the way they do.
i did suggest as a beginning you contemplate why Ayn Rand took Social Security benefits, and why she needed to.
at the risk of running on and on and hijacking the thread to my own favorite topic
it is worth the exercise to try to understand why “they” persist in what you think is error, in spite of your attempts to “explain” it to them. be very very careful of self-reinforcing answers.
When any such is presented, I will.
I await such explanations with bated breath. So far, I have seen little or nothing in the way of explanation of why they disagree — just personal attacks.
Jack,
There are a dozen explanations in this topic alone. Not one of which you acknowledge and/or even understand.
You say black is white. Someone shows you that black is black. You say black is white again. And again. And again.
That is why you are attacked. You refuse to read and/or cannot understand what you read.
“You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.”
Groucho Marx
Precisely, EMichael. And, precisely, Groucho.
And btw, EMichael, I share your view on the death penalty. Again, precisely.
Pencils are graphite.