The US Economy

Ducking? Why no, Tart, I don't do that. Its would be irresponsible. I'm saying folks, including you an me, are pretty much responsible for their own decisions. Bad decesions often have unfortunate consequences. So sometimes can good decisions. Life is a crapshoot. Are the survivors of a flash flood or a battle or an earthquake any more worthy or deserving of life than were the victims? I'm fine with a socio-economic safety net, but the idea of a federal featherbed is repugnant to me. I'm a proponent of workfare, not welfare. Welfare is a self-reinforing trap. What people need is opportunity and education, not handouts and free housing. I have no problem providing needed support and services to those who legitimately have no other recourse, for whatever reason, even intentionally self-inflicted addictions, provided sincere and honest effort is made to resolve that addiction and that demonstrated recidivism results in incarceration.

Who is President or who is Mayor, or who is Queen of the May is immaterial. Blaming or crediting external forces for one's fortunes or failure is nothing more than avoidance, denial, and transferance. The ill and the handicapped, physically or mentally, are indeed entitled to such support and assistance as may be required to assure their quality of life. The able unemployed are entitled to, and obligated to, educate themselves and to take an active role in managing their own lives. We need daycare centers and jobs programs and education outreach programs and accessiible medical care. We need environments which do not spawn pimps and drug dealers and opportunistic, predatory thugs. We need responsibility, and we need a lot of other things what we do not need is the burden, which we have imposed on ourselves, of an entire subculture which by choice or by circumstance, lives apart from productive, interactive society.

I happen to think it is an outrage that we have an "Unemployment Problem" and simultaneously employ millions of off-the-books illegal aliens. There should be neither finacial incentive nor legal opportunity for that state of affairs. The excuse that some jobs "Just don't pay enough" is just that, an excuse, and an excuse that is aided and abbetted by governmental policy. A livable minimum wage indexed to inflation would be something I'd favor. Fine if that raises the cost of living for all. Everyone should participate ... that's democracy. Education reform is something I'd favor, including admissions policy and tuition structuring. Our healthcare system is an inefficient, bureaucracy-laden embarrassment. Social Security was never meant to be one's full retirement; we need meaningful pension reform. The tax system is unmanageable as it stands ... inequitable, unwieldly, and so full of loopholes it could be used as a pasta strainer. Corporate governance is not much better.

We've got problems aplenty and we need to solve them, not preserve them. We need a hell of a lot more rowers and a hell of a lot fewer anchors. Freedom does not mean free ride, and misfortune is an option. That's the way life works. The way to make this country work is to put it to work. That is the biggest job we've got, and its long past time we buckled down and tackled it. It ain't goin' away on its own.

The conversation between Tartarin and Timber may illustrate yet another general difference between Dems and Republicans. When I was thinking about my answer to Tartarin's question, like Timber, I realized my personal choices were the deciding factor-- no Presidential edict/action made any difference in my livelihood. I am the master of my fortune (and I think we all are)--not some hapless victim of political tradewinds, blaming the government when things don't go well.

timber, You missed the mutual fund managers that traded after closing of the markets to enrich themselves. What the government will fail to do is to convict all these thieves and put them in prison for fifty years where they belong, and return all those stolen riches back to the funds. Otherwise, I agree with everything you say in the last paragraph of your post. See? I'm not a far left liberal.

Well, rah rah for Sofia.

You neatly leave out the handicapped and ill, the elderly and the poor who would find it hard to boast that they are the "masters of their fortune."

Anyway, the people I've heard touting that fantasy are those who have benefitted enormously from the government, be it public education, college loans, tax refunds, subsidized food and all the goodies that come with being an American. Some of us are more grateful than others -- humbler, perhaps, because we are more aware that we are "masters of our fortune" because we've been enabled by the system and the culture.

I don't know how some conservatives justify such progams. I DON'T. I think they are wrong and should be junked.

Sorry to spoil your fun.

Perhaps you should accept that not everyone who disagrees with you is turned out from some conservatoid factory somewhere.

Didn't miss the fund managers, c.i., thaey fall under corporate governance. Tartarin, reread my post. I did not leave out the ill or handicapped, I mentioned them specifically, and said they were deserving of all necessary succor. That is what was said, not what you wish you had read. Sorry. But thanks for playing.

timber, It's government governance that I'm complaining about. They're not doing enough even after the crooks are caught.

Legal reform is urgently required. Unfortunately, the bulk of members of both Legislative Houses are lawyers.

Well, rah for your special talents, as well, Tartarin. If you can't tolerate the message, you twist it to suit you better.

Any idiot would know the unable, disabled, differently abled are not lumped in with the expectations of the general populace. And, poor is not a disability.

I've always been immensely grateful for the benefits of being an American. Funny to hear you make such a statement, though.

why not just go back to the principles this country was founded on?

Scrat, if I have something you want, drive 5 miles North up Six Forks and try to kill me and take it. If you succeed you have my stuff, if you fail one of two results is possible. Either I drive you off and live to fight another day, or I kill you and then drive 5 mile South down Six Forks and take YOUR stuff.

Leave the government and those pesky laws about such things out of it. Let the one with the greatest desire drive and willingness to go all the way in their pursuit win the day.

Natural selection, rule of nature. Just ask any Native American.

God Bless America. :wink:

Indeed, BPB.

That may be the way you'd like things to work. I prefer the way the Constitution suggests.

Still ready to meet you for coffee and chat about anything other than politics. (Hockey, perhaps?)

Unsurprising.

Now subtract what the rich give not for philanthropic reasons but to reduce their taxes, and you'll get quite another story!!

Would you prefer they demanded its return?

OF course not, Timber. I'd just prefer a more intelligent interpretation of an opinion out of the Washington Times.

Looking at the study from The Catalogue for Philanthropy, the findings are inconvenient to your argument Tart.

New Hampshire, with a median income of $51K, was indexed dead last in giving, with an average total-charitable-contribution-per-taxpayer of $2400, while the most generous state was Mississippi, posting a charitable contribution average of $3500 against a median income of $34K.

The least generous of states comprise all of New England (which of course includes Lieberman's Connecticut, Kerry's Massachusets, and Dean's Vermont) plus Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. The most generous states were Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

The study also notes that while charitable giving in total-dollar terms is on the upswing, the average individual contribution has declined noticeably. So much for cynical fatcats skewing the totals.

Willing to betcha, Timber, that in many of the "most generous states," the philanthropy largely went to churches and religious organizations (not excluding the polyvinyl-haired preachers on TV) and not to the poor, the arts, the community!!

Go for whatever spin pleases you, Tart. I just looked at the available, objective, verifiable, peer-reviewed, credible data, which does not support your assertions. Find other objective, verifiable, peer-reviewed, credible data supportive of your assertions, and submit it for consideration.

Academically valid data, now mind you, not Op-Ed. Editorializing, annecdotes or opinion pieces are not evidence. I'm sure its no problem to find folks who agree with your position; I expect it a very different thing to find numbers to back it up with.

Hmm. I was raised by socialists/social-democrats, and they had a distinct prejudice against charity. Charity equated with hand-outs for the poor, whereas what was needed, of course, was for the poor to be empowered, to get rights rather than favours, reliable benefits and decent minimal wages rather than whatever Church-goers would feel like giving this week.

I look at this differently, and I actually greatly admire the principled, orthodox Christians for their ever-reliable commitment to sharing their means with those less well off. They give to charity; they are among the most steadfast proponants of an increased government budget for development aid.

I dont share my parents' sentiments, thus, but I do still share their basic assessment. No matter how noble the intent of giving is, it's not the answer to the problem - the poor do need rights, not favours. That means taxes rather than charity, yes.

In any case - what I was getting at - that opposition, an opposition in cultural values, may well be reflected in the figures you cited, too, Timber. I dont think theres many Socialdemocrats in the US, but I'm sure the same divergence in affinities occurs. Christians are bound to give more to charity - it's tradition and religious duty. Rural folk probably give more often than the individualised metropolitan dwellers. The old probably give more than the young. All that would reflect in a tilt towards red states, too.

Those Christian givers actually keep looking better in comparison, because times are changing. E.g., I wouldnt call my parents stingy. They devoted the better part of their best years to good causes, often spending both their work and free time bettering the conditions faced by minority women, local residents, third world peasants (I wont bore you with descriptions of their work, and I'm not claiming they "changed the world" - but they definitely did their bit, and achieved some stuff for others). Yet they despised charity - its very notion.

In the meantime, however, whereas traditional, religious milieus have kept giving, idealists of my parents' urban kind have become scarcer. Many individualised city-folk may have kept the aversion to traditional community ties that tend to come with charity, too, but no longer replace it with a commitment to structural, socio-political solidarity. In the nineties and now, they still enjoy the liberation from church and authority, but it involves no counter-ideological stand anymore - just a shamefree dedication to their own individual advancement. So we end up with ever more people who interpret not having to listen to the priest's adminsihments anymore as a license for egocentrism. Thats how it's increasingly been here, anyway. Perhaps that, too, reflects in the stats you cite.