CDZ Welfare vs Charity

[JimBowie1958]

How is that being brainwashed?

How is that going against our own interest

You are working to increase your own taxes so corporate taxes can be lowered and you cant understand how that is being brain washed? Lol, well, OK, I will actually answer that one as it might possibly be an honest question, though doubtful.

The federal government needs a certain amount of money each year or they run a deficit.

If you are fighting to reduce corporate taxes, you are in effect arguing to INCREASE INDIVIDUAL taxes.

And that is EXACTLY what has happened as the ratio of corporate to individual tax revenues has gone from 2:3 to 1:4 since 1950.

How is arguing for individual taxes to go up in the interest of the Middle Class?

I am sure you have some canned argument that justifies lowering corporate taxes while raising individual taxes, but I am still laughing from PCs claim that starvation makes you healthier, and I could use some more laughs these days.

Oh yea give me a link on this one

Dude, I dont have time to go on goose chases for you when you wont read it or even give it a moments thought.

But if you are truly curious, the data is totally Googleable.

 

[Wyatt earp]

How is that being brainwashed?

How is that going against our own interest

You are working to increase your own taxes so corporate taxes can be lowered and you cant understand how that is being brain washed? Lol, well, OK, I will actually answer that one as it might possibly be an honest question, though doubtful.

The federal government needs a certain amount of money each year or they run a deficit.

If you are fighting to reduce corporate taxes, you are in effect arguing to INCREASE INDIVIDUAL taxes.

And that is EXACTLY what has happened as the ratio of corporate to individual tax revenues has gone from 2:3 to 1:4 since 1950.

How is arguing for individual taxes to go up in the interest of the Middle Class?

I am sure you have some canned argument that justifies lowering corporate taxes while raising individual taxes, but I am still laughing from PCs claim that starvation makes you healthier, and I could use some more laughs these days.

Oh yea give me a link on this one

Dude, I dont have time to go on goose chases for you when you wont read it or even give it a moments thought.

But if you are truly curious, the data is totally Googleable.

I am not a lawyer or tax accountant , hell they don't even know..

You are throwing numbers out there for amusement purposes ..

 

[Andylusion]

Its a very simple proposition. If people in work still need assistance then we are subsidising their employers.
How can it be anything else ?

Your comment is based on the fallacious assumption that corporations, somehow, have a responsibility to provide for their employees.

Corporations have a single responsibility - to make as much money as they can make - period. No more, no less. To attempt to assign them some social construct, is to deny your own social responsibility.

And therefore they have no right to expect the taxpayer to subsidise their starvation wages.
If people work at a full time job then their employer should pay a living wage.

What is difficult about that ?

The employer should pay them exactly what they're worth - defined as how much value to they add to the finished product - and not one nickel more. Their lifestyle is not the responsibility of the employer.

Put in its simplest terms - which seems to work best around here -- it the goal of the employer to get $1 million worth of labor for $1, and it is the goal of the employee to get $1 million for $1 worth of labor. Sounds pretty adversarial to me.

I have seen this argument put before and it never ceases to entertain me. Corporations do not operate in a bubble. The sole pursuit of profit is not an acceptable business model.

Corporations benefit from the advances made by our society and need to play their part in supporting that.

It simply amazes me how many middle class people have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by corporate propaganda that they seem to think that it is the corporations that have had taxes raised on them and have to pay more than their fair share in taxes.

In 1950 corporations paid $2 for every 43 the individuals in the USA paid.

Now it is down to $1 for every $4 that individuals pay and these doofuses keep demanding more tax cuts for CORPORATIONS! They argue that corporate taxes are too high when they are at their lowest proportionate to individual tax revenues in IRS history!

It is simply amazing how people allow themselves to be brainwashed to work against their own interests - simply mind boggling!

First of, $2 for every $43 the individual pays, verse $1 for every $4, would mean that the mount corporations have paid, is higher today than back in the 1950s. Obviously there is something wrong with that.

Second, it is simply amazing how people allow themselves to be brainwashed by leftwing ideology, to work against their own interests.

Right now, the tax code has caused our corporations to invest more and more outside our country, and less and less inside our country. But you want to increase taxes on corporations to drive more and more jobs and investment away from the US.

Left-wing ideology is equal to a suicide cult, only more arrogant about their virtues of self immolation.

 

[Wilbur Right]

Right now, the tax code has caused our corporations to invest more and more outside our country,

You just can't be educated can you?


So tell all, does dirt cheap labor costs play any part in companies moving out of this country? Do you have an opinion on labor costs? Would you be willing to work for less money to bring back those jobs?

Instead of reducing corporate taxes, let's reduce labor costs. How much you willing to give up in earnings for the benefit of beloved corporations?

 

[320 Years of History]

If people are doing this 40 hours a week, when are they taking classes to get new skills? When are they doing work searches?

During the remaining 128 hours of the week.

Your response that suggests you are more interested in punishing the poor than helping them to get on their feet.

So you think it wise to rob them of 80 hours a week of pointless make do BS labor, then leave them the evenings and weekends to look for work, get trained in a new career line and still eat, sleep, shit, shower, shave and have a little time for the family?

You are not being serious about helping these people with that kind of nonsense; you are working on the presupposition that they are merely lazy asses and forcing them to do a little work will drive them to getting real jobs.

Were we talking about 20 hours of work a week, I could buy the idea, as it would help them to get out, stay used to early rising, and make social contacts, but a full work week that would interfere with actually getting a real job?

That is punitive nonsense.

Red:
What readers should infer from my remark is that the line of argument that says there isn't enough time in the week, what with working 40 hours, is a "non-starter" with me as a reason why folks cannot gain new skills.

 

[Andylusion]

How is that being brainwashed?

How is that going against our own interest

You are working to increase your own taxes so corporate taxes can be lowered and you cant understand how that is being brain washed? Lol, well, OK, I will actually answer that one as it might possibly be an honest question, though doubtful.

The federal government needs a certain amount of money each year or they run a deficit.

If you are fighting to reduce corporate taxes, you are in effect arguing to INCREASE INDIVIDUAL taxes.

And that is EXACTLY what has happened as the ratio of corporate to individual tax revenues has gone from 2:3 to 1:4 since 1950.

How is arguing for individual taxes to go up in the interest of the Middle Class?

I am sure you have some canned argument that justifies lowering corporate taxes while raising individual taxes, but I am still laughing from PCs claim that starvation makes you healthier, and I could use some more laughs these days.

All throughout world history, people have adapted to the economic incentives given to them. Corporations are no different than any other individual that uses every single tax deduction possible, to avoid paying money to the government. This is nothing new.

Take the history of Israel. By all accounts, Israel in times gone past, was a major agricultural land. However, the Bible said it would end up a wasteland, and it was by the early 1900s, a desert barren wasteland.

How did it get that way? One of the things that happened was the Ottoman empire imposed a tax on the that area, which was based on the number of trees on your land. Guess what the land owners did? They clear cut all the trees, which destroyed the land.

People will ALWAYS adapt to the tax incentives given to them. Always. No exception.

Yes, in the 1950s when taxes were first hiked up all over the place, people paid a ton of taxes. But over time, the amount of revenue from them declined, as corporations started changing how they operated, to avoid taxes.

You mentioned the 1950s, where the corporate tax collected $10 Billion dollars in revenue.
You fail to mention that in 1945, the corporate tax collected $15 Billion in revenue.

In just 5 years, corporations adjusted how they operated to reduce how much taxes they paid by 1/3rd.

Perhaps that is a fluke?

Companies continue chipping away at health insurance benefits

Employees on average contributed $2,490 toward premiums and another $2,208 in out-of-pocket costs, such as copayments, coinsurance and deductibles in 2015, the report shows. The amount of employees’ premium and out-of-pocket costs combined was just $2,001 in 2005.
Increases in deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs stem in large part from the looming “Cadillac tax” that takes effect in 2018, experts at Aon and consulting firm Towers Watson say.​

What is going on here? The companies are modifying their insurance plans, to reduce their exposure to the Cadillac Plan Tax.

This is happening before the Cadillac plan Tax has been fully implemented.

So even today, as we speak corporations are changing how they operate to avoid taxes, that are not even implemented yet.

Just like corporations are investing over seas and creating jobs in other countries, rather than bringing the money back to the US to be taxed at 35%. The more you try and tighten the screws, the more everything we have will slip away. The Soviet Union didn't end up on the brink of starvation in week. Nor will the US. But if you follow the same path, you'll have the same results.

 

[Andylusion]

Right now, the tax code has caused our corporations to invest more and more outside our country,

You just can't be educated can you?


So tell all, does dirt cheap labor costs play any part in companies moving out of this country? Do you have an opinion on labor costs? Would you be willing to work for less money to bring back those jobs?

Instead of reducing corporate taxes, let's reduce labor costs. How much you willing to give up in earnings for the benefit of beloved corporations?

Dirt cheap labor does play a part, but I would argue it's not the primary cause. Why? Because 1st world countries have been competing with low wage labor for over a hundred years.

Even to this day the cost of competing labor is a fraction of the true cost. For example, here in Hilliard, Ohio, Micro Center has their products built in a warehouse across the street.

They used to be built in China. Why did they have production moved back here to high-wage US, from low-wage China? Well first off, the cost of production is going up every single year in China. Supply and Demand. As the demand for labor uses up the supply of labor, the wages required to pay for labor drastically increases.

Moreover, you have shipping costs. That may seem like a minor thing, but you have to account for lost and damaged products. Products that were poorly built, or built wrong, that need replaced. When we received a bad shipment, the shipping cost was too high to return the product. As a result it's cheaper for us to simply eat the cost, rather than pay to have it returned.

Lastly, you have a huge issue with supply chain timing. If sales for some reason jump 100% this month, and we place an order, we won't get that order of new product in, for three months. During which time our store shelves are empty.

So even with the lower cost of wages there, with all the other factors, we are still cost competitive, and have been for decades. We were competing with China in the 1990s. Same in the 2000s. In fact, we were competitive with China even in the 1980s, when they first adopted capitalism.

Thus while it's true that low wages is a factor, it's not the entire deal. Or even most of the deal. Again, when Steve Jobs was asked by Obama what it would take to bring Iphone manufacturing to the US, Steve said nothing would bring it back. What reason did he give? It wasn't low-wages that kept production in China. It was the flexibility of their manufacturing ability.

Flexibility, like not having to get a dozen EPA permissions, and an ecological study, and a hundred waivers and permits. Flexibility, like not having to deal with Union regulations, and labor laws that restrict how companies can operate.

Now you may actually think some of those things are required, and you might even be able to make a case for some of them. But regardless, this is why companies are investing over seas, in addition to lower corporate taxes.

Wages is only a minor part of the problem. The rest is all this. Taxes and regulations, that drive business out of the country.

 

[Andylusion]

If people are doing this 40 hours a week, when are they taking classes to get new skills? When are they doing work searches?

During the remaining 128 hours of the week.

Your response that suggests you are more interested in punishing the poor than helping them to get on their feet.

So you think it wise to rob them of 80 hours a week of pointless make do BS labor, then leave them the evenings and weekends to look for work, get trained in a new career line and still eat, sleep, shit, shower, shave and have a little time for the family?

You are not being serious about helping these people with that kind of nonsense; you are working on the presupposition that they are merely lazy asses and forcing them to do a little work will drive them to getting real jobs.

Were we talking about 20 hours of work a week, I could buy the idea, as it would help them to get out, stay used to early rising, and make social contacts, but a full work week that would interfere with actually getting a real job?

That is punitive nonsense.

Red:
What readers should infer from my remark is that the line of argument that says there isn't enough time in the week, what with working 40 hours, is a "non-starter" with me as a reason why folks cannot gain new skills.

Well people like Jim, think that they should be able to get a 6-figure income, while working only 40 hours. Anyone can start their own business, and make tons of money. They just don't want to put in the time. But no one has ever made it big, working as few hours as possible.

The people who started Snapple, at one point were sleeping in their cars, at the plant parking lot. You can't make it big, and work 9 to 5.

Yet even those who do, just work a straight 40 hours, can still advance somewhat in their career, and gain skills. When I was at Advance Auto Parts, they had on-the-clock training provided on-site. When things were slow, you could log on to the companies training, and learn how to do the cycle counts, the store budget, and other various things.

Things that if you completed them all, and passed all your tests, they would give you a company certification. Getting that allowed you free company paid management training program.

So even the most lazy idiot, could still advance somehow in their career.

I have a friend who got college reimbursement from Walmart, and now is a civil engineer. From working at Walmart.

People like Jim are not saying what they say from a perspective of fact or truth. They are speaking out of necessity. He MUST believe that people are helpless and stuck. That's the only way to justify left-wing ideology to control and regulate business, and have endless government programs that harm the poor, while claiming to benefit them.

 

[320 Years of History]

If people are doing this 40 hours a week, when are they taking classes to get new skills? When are they doing work searches?

During the remaining 128 hours of the week.

Your response that suggests you are more interested in punishing the poor than helping them to get on their feet.

So you think it wise to rob them of 80 hours a week of pointless make do BS labor, then leave them the evenings and weekends to look for work, get trained in a new career line and still eat, sleep, shit, shower, shave and have a little time for the family?

You are not being serious about helping these people with that kind of nonsense; you are working on the presupposition that they are merely lazy asses and forcing them to do a little work will drive them to getting real jobs.

Were we talking about 20 hours of work a week, I could buy the idea, as it would help them to get out, stay used to early rising, and make social contacts, but a full work week that would interfere with actually getting a real job?

That is punitive nonsense.

Red:
What readers should infer from my remark is that the line of argument that says there isn't enough time in the week, what with working 40 hours, is a "non-starter" with me as a reason why folks cannot gain new skills.

Well people like Jim, think that they should be able to get a 6-figure income, while working only 40 hours. Anyone can start their own business, and make tons of money. They just don't want to put in the time. But no one has ever made it big, working as few hours as possible.

The people who started Snapple, at one point were sleeping in their cars, at the plant parking lot. You can't make it big, and work 9 to 5.

Yet even those who do, just work a straight 40 hours, can still advance somewhat in their career, and gain skills. When I was at Advance Auto Parts, they had on-the-clock training provided on-site. When things were slow, you could log on to the companies training, and learn how to do the cycle counts, the store budget, and other various things.

Things that if you completed them all, and passed all your tests, they would give you a company certification. Getting that allowed you free company paid management training program.

So even the most lazy idiot, could still advance somehow in their career.

I have a friend who got college reimbursement from Walmart, and now is a civil engineer. From working at Walmart.

People like Jim are not saying what they say from a perspective of fact or truth. They are speaking out of necessity. He MUST believe that people are helpless and stuck. That's the only way to justify left-wing ideology to control and regulate business, and have endless government programs that harm the poor, while claiming to benefit them.

Thematically I agree with your general point that there is lots of opportunity that's there for the taking and availing oneself of it will require more than just working 40 hours a week. I agree with your theme because I happen to know you are correct, but were I not already possessed of that knowledge, what you wrote would be far from convincing. The reason is that the specific ways you expressed your thoughts are unconvincing because of:

• the generalizations that are unsupported thus lending the post a pontifical tone as well as merely being the remarks of someone about whom the reader knows nothing, least of all whether you should be viewed as an expert on matters of why folks do are or are not financially successful, or why folks do or don't take advantage of opportunities that stare them in the face,
• the off-handed insult, and
• the heavy reliance on anecdotal evidence.

Indeed, the reliance on anecdotal evidence didn't need to occur at all, especially seeing as of your main points, it is the one that is very easily supported with facts that take all of a few seconds to gather. There are plenty of resources on WWW about companies that offer tuition reimbursement, for example:

• 15 Companies That Will Help Pay Your College Tuition
  
• 4 Fast Food Jobs That Pay for College
  
• These 6 Companies Give Their Employees Unlimited Tuition Reimbursement
  
• Jobs that pay for college
  
• 10 Companies that Offer Tuition Assistance
  
• 33 Companies That Can Save You From College Debt | CollegePlus

 

[JimBowie1958]

First of, $2 for every $43 the individual pays, verse $1 for every $4, would mean that the mount corporations have paid, is higher today than back in the 1950s. Obviously there is something wrong with that.

That was a typo and should have been $2 for every $3 individuals paid.

Second, it is simply amazing how people allow themselves to be brainwashed by leftwing ideology, to work against their own interests.

Corporate taxes are LOWER by comparison, not higher, doofus. The official rates are not paid because they have so many loopholes that they often end up getting money BACK from the government instead of paying a damned cent.

16 Giant Corporations That Have Basically Stopped Paying Taxes -- While Also Cutting Jobs!
General Electric: The worst tax record over five years, with $81 billion in profits and a $3 billion refund.

Boeing: In addition to receiving a refund despite $21.5 billion in profits, the company ranked high in job cutting, underfunded pensions, and contractor misconduct.

Exxon Mobil: Made by far the largest profits in the group, but paid less than 1% in U.S. taxes, and yet received oil subsidies along with their tax breaks. Unabashedly reports a 2012 "theoretical tax" of over $27 billion, almost 90% of its total income tax expense. The company was also near the top in contractor misconduct.

Verizon: Second worst tax record, with a refund despite $48 billion in profits.

Kraft Foods: Received a refund from the public despite $13.5 billion in profits. Also a leading job-cutter.

Citigroup: One of the five big banks who are estimated to get a bailout/refund from the American public amounting to three cents from every tax dollar.

Dow Chemical: Received a refund despite almost $10 billion in profits.

IBM: Paid less than 3% in taxes while ranking as one of the leading job cutters, and near the top in contractor misconduct.

Chevron: In addition to a meager 4.3% tax rate and a share of oil subsidies, the company has been the main beneficiary of tax-exempt government bonds.

FedEx: The company paid less than 5% in federal taxes while relying on the publicly-funded Post Office to deliver thirty percent of its ground packages.

....

Apple: Where to begin? Avoiding federal taxes, avoiding state taxes, hiding overseas earnings, engaging in intellectual property schemes, using the "Double Irish" to transfer profits from Europe to Bermuda, and underpaying its store workers despite conducting most of itsproduct and research development in the United States.

Pfizer: One of the leaders in stockpiling untaxed profits overseas, and right behind Merck in contractor misconduct dollars.

Google: A master at the "Double Irish" revenue shift to Bermuda tax havens, while using tax loopholes to bring a lot of the money back to the U.S. without paying taxes on it. Recognized as one of the world's biggest tax avoiders.

Microsoft: Named as one of the biggest offshore hoarders while using tax strategies to bring much of their untaxed money back to the U.S., where it also avoids state taxes.

 

[JimBowie1958]

The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes | Citizens for Tax Justice

• As a group, the 288 corporations examined paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 19.4 percent over the five-year period — far less than the statutory 35 percent tax rate.

• Twenty-six of the corporations, including Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com and Verizon, paid no federal income tax at all over the five year period. A third of the corporations (93) paid an effective tax rate of less than ten percent over that period.

• Of those corporations in our sample with significant offshore profits, two thirds paid higher corporate tax rates to foreign governments where they operate than they paid in the U.S. on their U.S. profits.

These findings refute the prevailing view inside the Washington, D.C. Beltway that America’s corporate income tax is more burdensome than the corporate income taxes levied by other countries, and that this purported (but false) excess burden somehow makes the U.S. “uncompetitive.”

Other Findings:

• One hundred and eleven of the 288 companies (39 percent of them) paid zero or less in federal income taxes in at least one year from 2008 to 2012.

• The sectors with the lowest effective corporate tax rates over the five-year period were utilities (2.9 percent), industrial machinery (4.3 percent), telecommunications (9.8 percent), oil, gas and pipelines (14.4 percent), transportation (16.4 percent), aerospace and defense (16.7 percent) and financial (18.8 percent).

• The tax breaks claimed by these companies are highly concentrated in the hands of a few very large corporations. Just 25 companies claimed $174 billion in tax breaks over the five years between 2008 and 2012. That’s almost half the $364 billion in tax subsidies claimed by all of the 288 companies in our sample.

• Five companies — Wells Fargo, AT&T, IBM, General Electric, and Verizon — enjoyed over $77 billion in tax breaks during this five-year period.

 

[JimBowie1958]

26 top American corporations paid no federal income tax from ’08 to ’12 – report

Twenty-six of the most powerful American corporations – such as Boeing, General Electric, and Verizon – paid no federal income tax from 2008 to 2012, according to a new report detailing how Fortune 500 companies exploit tax breaks and loopholes.

The report, conducted by public advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), focuses on the 288 companies in the Fortune 500 that registered consistent profit every year from 2008 to 2012. Those 288 profitable corporations paid an “effective federal income tax rate of just 19.4 percent over the five-year period — far less than the statutory 35 percent tax rate,” CTJ states.

One-third, or 93, of the analyzed companies paid an effective tax rate below 10 percent in that timespan, CTJ found.

Defenders of low corporate taxes call the US federal statutory rate of 35 percent one of the highest companies face in any nation. But the report signals how the most formidable corporate entities in the US take advantage of tax breaks,loopholes, and accounting schemes to keep their effective rates down.

“Tax subsidies for the 288 companies over the five years totaled a staggering $364 billion, including $56 billion in 2008, $70 billion in 2009, $80 billion in 2010, $87 billion in 2011, and $70 billion in 2012,” CTJ states. “These amounts are the difference between what the companies would have paid if their tax bills equaled 35 percent of their profits and what they actually paid.”

Just 25 of the 288 companies kept tax breaks of $174 billion out of the $364 billion total. Wells Fargo received the largest amount of tax subsidies - $21.6 billion - in the five-year period. The banking giant was joined in the top ten on that list by the likes of AT&T, ExxonMobil, J.P Morgan Chase, and Wal-Mart.

 

[JimBowie1958]

30 companies paid 'less than zero' taxes in recent years

General Electric made big waves earlier in the year when The New York Times reported that the company paid no taxes in the U.S. in 2010, and in fact claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

How could a company that made $14.2 billion in profits worldwide avoid paying taxes? G.E. wasn’t the only one, according to a new report released on Thursday by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The two advocacy groups, which could be fairly described as left-leaning, claim that among the 280 most profitable U.S. companies, 30 of them paid “less than zero” in taxes in the last three years, and 78 of the companies didn’t pay any federal income tax in at least one of the last three years....

“This is not an ‘anti-business’ report,” the authors of the study wrote. “On the contrary, we, like most Americans, want our businesses to do well…. But we also need a much better balance when it comes to taxes. Just as workers pay their fair share of taxes on their earnings, so should successful businesses pay their fair share on their success.

"But today corporate tax loopholes are so out of control that most Americans can rightfully complain, ‘I pay more federal income taxes than General Electric, Boeing, DuPont, Wells Fargo, Verizon, etc., etc., all put together.’”

 

[JimBowie1958]

Facebook won’t pay taxes again, will get refund instead

It’s shaping up to be another multi-billion dollar year for Facebook, but don’t expect the social networking site to pay it forward: according to a new analysis, the website will pay no taxes this year and will instead likely receive a federal refund.

That’s according to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), who on Tuesday this week released the 2013 edition of his annual “Wastebook” report detailing instances of what he considers unnecessary government spending.
.....
Last year, the senator says, “one of America’s largest companies avoided paying federal or state income taxes, and is poised to do so again this year. In fact, they will likely receive a check from the federal government in the form of a tax refund.”

“Despite bringing in more than $1 billion in US pretax profits last year, the social-media giant Facebook reported a combined $429 million refund from their federal and state tax filings,” he continues, including roughly $295 million from Uncle Sam.

According to Coburn’s report, last year Facebook relied on an employee stock option tax deduction to lower the amount of owed income taxes by around $1.03 billion.

“By providing stock options as a major form of their compensation, to date Facebook has claimed $3.2 billion in federal and state stock option deductions, $1.03 billion of which was used to offset their total US pretax profit of $1.1 billion in 2012 and $429 million was refunded from its 2010 and 2011 tax bills,” he says.

 

[JimBowie1958]

So while corporations get away with an average of less than 20% in taxes while hard working Americans, if they can find a job, are paying over 40% including Social Securety, and more than 52% in taxes of all kinds, local, state and federal on their pay and consumer items tax bill that was passed along in higher prices.

THAT is how corporations are screwing over Middle Class America while about half of them justify it and argue for more tax cuts for corporations on top of what they already have.

 

[JimBowie1958]

If people are doing this 40 hours a week, when are they taking classes to get new skills? When are they doing work searches?

During the remaining 128 hours of the week.

Your response that suggests you are more interested in punishing the poor than helping them to get on their feet.

So you think it wise to rob them of 80 hours a week of pointless make do BS labor, then leave them the evenings and weekends to look for work, get trained in a new career line and still eat, sleep, shit, shower, shave and have a little time for the family?

You are not being serious about helping these people with that kind of nonsense; you are working on the presupposition that they are merely lazy asses and forcing them to do a little work will drive them to getting real jobs.

Were we talking about 20 hours of work a week, I could buy the idea, as it would help them to get out, stay used to early rising, and make social contacts, but a full work week that would interfere with actually getting a real job?

That is punitive nonsense.

Red:
What readers should infer from my remark is that the line of argument that says there isn't enough time in the week, what with working 40 hours, is a "non-starter" with me as a reason why folks cannot gain new skills.

Dude, I worked my way through college, took me nine years, not counting the five years I spent in the infantry, and I finally got my degree by mostly taking night courses after I got married.

I worked my ass off and I nearly gave up so many times, but I managed to get my degree as a Software engineer/computer scientist at the University of Maryland with a 3.6 GPA.

Yes I know that it can be done, but I also know THAT MOST PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE THE DISCIPLINE TO DO THIS.

Are you trying to help these people or simply punish them for not being as smart and fortunate as you are genetically?

What is being proposed WILL NOT WORK. All you will accomplish is alienating the underclass even more.

You want a Marxist civil war going on in this country, then by all means go and cut more social programs, sure go right ahead.

 

[Spare_change]

The permanent underclass is maintained by creating government programs that offer no path to an increased financial reality, providing them a living subsistence with no possibility for growth, thus ensuring that their presence in the underclass is permanent.

Creating a permanent underclass and marginalizing the growth potential of whole segment of society is NOT "for the good of society", and constitutes the basest of thefts and the use of other people's money to solidify your position as the controlling element.

There is some permanency in allowing people to remain on welfare and not encourage them to leave it, but some have no choice such as the elderly on SocSec or military people on pensions, etc.

Your sweeping generalizations are simplistic in the extreme.

Ask yourself - what is the purpose of our government? Now, ask yourself - how does welfare help meet that purpose? In those two answers, you will find the fallacy of your position.

There are a great many purposes found in the Constitution for our federal and state governments.

That you think there is only one or a few simple purposes that can be attributed as one, is telling, and provides the fallacy of your position.

Ladies and gentlemen ---

What we have here is an example how to respond when you don't have a coherent or cogent counter-argument. If you can't attack the argument, attack the poster.

Ridiculous unsupported assertions.

Welcome to my ignore list.

Must be awful lonesome if you put everybody who happens to disagree with you on your ignore list.

 

[320 Years of History]

I know that it can be done, but I also know THAT MOST PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE THE DISCIPLINE TO DO THIS.

Are you trying to help these people or simply punish them for not being as smart and fortunate as you are genetically?

I believe the Lord helps those who help themselves. How that applies in the context of this discussion about skills development and whatnot is that those who lack the commitment and discipline -- two things that don't cost any money at all -- to "bust ass" and "get 'er done" don't deserve to rewarded for their sloth. I also have no belief that punishment is what they deserve either; I have no thought that society should take from those folks whatever they've gained in the course of putting out as little effort as they can.

For folks at the level of needing welfare assistance, the simple fact is that I have no desire to have folks starving and going homeless, so welfare benefits aren't among the things I'd deny folks. If they work, and their earnings are supplemented with housing support and/or food support, fine. Moreover, if they are working or not, I think those folks need to get training to boost their skill levels. But if won't participate in the training, I'm certainly not going to suggest they deserve more than the state provided assistance to keep them from being homeless and hungry.

A couple other things:

• The act of providing support to the extent needed to make up for one's inability to feed and house themselves is not my idea of a "reward." It may be someone else's.
• I do not ascribe to the idea that people are perfectly content if they have a roof of some sort over their head and some sort of nourishment in their bellies. There may be folks for whom that's enough, but I think those folks are very "few and far between."

You want a Marxist civil war going on in this country, then by all means go and cut more social programs, sure go right ahead.

??? Excuse me? I know you recognize my ID as I do yours, I did write the following posts:

• CDZ - Welfare vs Charity

You know, I gotta say that of all the things I could worry about, how much the government spends, thus how much of my tax dollar gets consumed by that spending, how much it spends on welfare and similar programs is very low on the list of things that disturb me. There are a few reasons why I don't really care all that much:

• Welfare is spending that returns more to the economy than it cost to provide.
• Welfare is spending that helps individual and specific human beings.
• "Corporate welfare" consumes far, far more of my tax payments and goes indirectly to support individuals who have less need for the help than do welfare recipients, if only by dint of their being employed by those corporations, if not an ownership stake.
• I really don't care whether every welfare recipient "needs" the help; I care that without welfare, the people who do truly need the help will receive less help than they do currently. I might care were welfare to consume a share of my tax payments comparable to that of "corporate welfare," but it doesn't doesn't, and I'm not going to be so heartless as to complain about the relative pittance welfare takes from my taxes, even considering whatever graft that may occur in welfare programs.

Welfare is spending that returns more to the economy than it cost to provide.

This is entirely false, by any economic measure possible. In fact, it's false by the very nature of the system, without trying to measure it. At the very fundamental level, it is logically impossible for what you claim to be true.

Welfare is spending that helps individual and specific human beings.

Depends on how you define help. While I was in college, I was forced to watch an educational video about a guy who lost his job, because of an apartment fire, where he failed to buy rental insurance, and lost all his tools. Instead of getting a job at a fast food joint, he got public housing assistance, but then was faced with the dilemma that if he got a job, he would be kicked out of the public housing. So instead he just remained unemployed. After being there for 2 years, he openly on camera admitted he was considering suicide.

There's your "help".

Compare that to the shelter I worked at, which pushed and helped people get jobs, and furnish their own apartments as soon as they earned the money to sign a lease. That's real help. Helping people to move on. Not helping them to stay in misery for life.

And let's not forget that for every dollar of taxes, the end welfare recipient gets about 20¢. That's your 'help'. Where as for every dollar given to the charities I support, the end recipient gets about 90¢. That's real help.

"Corporate welfare" consumes far, far more of my tax payments and goes indirectly to support individuals who have less need for the help than do welfare recipients, if only by dint of their being employed by those corporations, if not an ownership stake.

Total lie. Just simply not true. You have been brainwashed by liars. Pure and simple.

By the way, just for the sake of a hypothetical argument, if I had no choice, but to choose to either give money to a corporation or to a welfare recipient, which would I choose? The Corporation. How many jobs have you gotten, created by a welfare person? How many products have been made by a welfare person? How many products and jobs are created by corporations? Millions. Billions. Trillions even.

Any rational person, if they had no choice but to pick who to give money to, should pick corporations.

I really don't care whether every welfare recipient "needs" the help; I care that without welfare, the people who do truly need the help will receive less help than they do currently. I might care were welfare to consume a share of my tax payments comparable to that of "corporate welfare," but it doesn't doesn't, and I'm not going to be so heartless as to complain about the relative pittance welfare takes from my taxes, even considering whatever graft that may occur in welfare programs.

By the way, if you want people to get off welfare, and get good jobs, who are they going to those jobs from? Corporations.

You know, the more you talk on this subject, the more it becomes clear you don't know what you are talking about, but you think you do.

Coming from you, I'm not insulted.

Well, that's good. The comment isn't written as an insult.

 

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That claim is patently false and one has nothing to do with the other, but you already knew that

Its a very simple proposition. If people in work still need assistance then we are subsidising their employers.
How can it be anything else ?

Your comment is based on the fallacious assumption that corporations, somehow, have a responsibility to provide for their employees.

Corporations have a single responsibility - to make as much money as they can make - period. No more, no less. To attempt to assign them some social construct, is to deny your own social responsibility.

And therefore they have no right to expect the taxpayer to subsidise their starvation wages.
If people work at a full time job then their employer should pay a living wage.

What is difficult about that ?

The employer should pay them exactly what they're worth - defined as how much value to they add to the finished product - and not one nickel more. Their lifestyle is not the responsibility of the employer.

Put in its simplest terms - which seems to work best around here -- it the goal of the employer to get $1 million worth of labor for $1, and it is the goal of the employee to get $1 million for $1 worth of labor. Sounds pretty adversarial to me.

I have seen this argument put before and it never ceases to entertain me. Corporations do not operate in a bubble. The sole pursuit of profit is not an acceptable business model.

Corporations benefit from the advances made by our society and need to play their part in supporting that.

They do --- it's called paying taxes --- quit trying to find some flimsy excuse to blame the corporations when the fault lies with you.

 

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Its a very simple proposition. If people in work still need assistance then we are subsidising their employers.
How can it be anything else ?

Your comment is based on the fallacious assumption that corporations, somehow, have a responsibility to provide for their employees.

Corporations have a single responsibility - to make as much money as they can make - period. No more, no less. To attempt to assign them some social construct, is to deny your own social responsibility.

And therefore they have no right to expect the taxpayer to subsidise their starvation wages.
If people work at a full time job then their employer should pay a living wage.

What is difficult about that ?

The employer should pay them exactly what they're worth - defined as how much value to they add to the finished product - and not one nickel more. Their lifestyle is not the responsibility of the employer.

Put in its simplest terms - which seems to work best around here -- it the goal of the employer to get $1 million worth of labor for $1, and it is the goal of the employee to get $1 million for $1 worth of labor. Sounds pretty adversarial to me.

I have seen this argument put before and it never ceases to entertain me. Corporations do not operate in a bubble. The sole pursuit of profit is not an acceptable business model.

Corporations benefit from the advances made by our society and need to play their part in supporting that.

It simply amazes me how many middle class people have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by corporate propaganda that they seem to think that it is the corporations that have had taxes raised on them and have to pay more than their fair share in taxes.

In 1950 corporations paid $2 for every 43 the individuals in the USA paid.

Now it is down to $1 for every $4 that individuals pay and these doofuses keep demanding more tax cuts for CORPORATIONS! They argue that corporate taxes are too high when they are at their lowest proportionate to individual tax revenues in IRS history!

It is simply amazing how people allow themselves to be brainwashed to work against their own interests - simply mind boggling!

As I read your post, the same thought occurred to me --- it is mind boggling how you allow yourself to be brainwashed.