Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

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In my ethics class, an issue about welfare was brought up and they talked about ways in which you could abuse the system and whether or not it'd be ethical to do so.

The situation.

You are currently a student who is living at home and has no expenses. You go to the social services board or whatever board issues the welfare checks and apply for welfare. By chance, you've managed to get 200$ a month and your true intentions are to re-invest it to turn around a profit. Now, what you do is you give that 200$ to a parent or a relative who can reinvest that money for you to turn a profit. The intention for the use of the profit is partly for personal gain and also charitable donations. Since you are also paying taxes on your profit, which say manage to equal the amount of welfare you receive for each month while also donating another percent of the profit to charity or some community services program. Is this ethical ? The taxes pay back the amount you've acquired from welfare and you're also paying out more of the profit to a community service. Ethical or not?

In a nut shell, you're telling a lie to help the community as well as yourself.

IMO, I think it would be alright to do it since you're giving back more than what you're taking. If everyone on welfare did this, there'd be a lot more consumption and prosperity which in turn leads to a better economy. I'd say go for it.

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I disagree entirely. It's an "end justifies the means" argument.

If I could give lethal injections to 50 million Africans today to spare the starvation of 100 million Africans in 20 years time, would that be ethical?

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I bet, in the given scenario, that if you went in and told them what you were planning to do with the 200$ they would not give it to you. They would just tell you to visit your bank or a potential investor.

Eorl wrote:

If I could give lethal injections to 50 million Africans today to spare the starvation of 100 million Africans in 20 years time, would that be ethical?

No.

But what about a more realistic scenarion. A third world country suffers from famine. There is not enough food in the country to feed all the people, and no way to establish an agricultural growth that can sustain them, because everything is eaten before it can grow. So the UN and other organizations go in with food and medicine.

Now, at the rate we do this there no way we can end starvation. We simply do not use enough resources to do this. The result of every such operation is only to keep everyone on the brink of starvation. The land is barren; there are just too many people.

A solution would be to just keep out. Let nature run it's course, let balance restore itself so that the strongest survive. Then they will have a foundation to build on. One that can carry them. Then we could move in and help.

Because that is very often the case. Starvation is very often a result of over populated areas where there are more people than there are resources to sustain them.

So what is more cruel? To keep out and let them starve to death, so that the survivors can rise and for a functional society, or to move in with just enough resources to keep everyone barely alive and just on the brink of starvation?

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That is twisted ethics, I think, crayon. It doesn't take into consideration the wider picture.

A more reasonable solution, IMO, would be to work towards eliminating a welfare state if that is the end goal anyways. Right? End goal: to more fairly distribute resources and give everyone equal opportunities??

Perhaps it is not. The motive is important. The motive for sucking from welfare while being fully supported already is personal gain here. The fact that the person would be paying taxes (you have to pay taxes anyways, it's supposed to be with your own earned money) doesn't make it ok. The fact they they would intend to give to charity - throwing money at the problem - doesn't help either. The roots remain and the person is perpetuating it!

No, it drives me personally nuts when people think they can use a system while simulatenously disrespecting the values that drive that system.
Stay out of the system or work for change in a positive matter if you don't like it.

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Re: Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

crayon851 wrote:

In my ethics class, an issue about welfare was brought up and they talked about ways in which you could abuse the system and whether or not it'd be ethical to do so.

The situation.

You are currently a student who is living at home and has no expenses. You go to the social services board or whatever board issues the welfare checks and apply for welfare. By chance, you've managed to get 200$ a month and your true intentions are to re-invest it to turn around a profit. Now, what you do is you give that 200$ to a parent or a relative who can reinvest that money for you to turn a profit. The intention for the use of the profit is partly for personal gain and also charitable donations. Since you are also paying taxes on your profit, which say manage to equal the amount of welfare you receive for each month while also donating another percent of the profit to charity or some community services program. Is this ethical ? The taxes pay back the amount you've acquired from welfare and you're also paying out more of the profit to a community service. Ethical or not?

In a nut shell, you're telling a lie to help the community as well as yourself.

IMO, I think it would be alright to do it since you're giving back more than what you're taking. If everyone on welfare did this, there'd be a lot more consumption and prosperity which in turn leads to a better economy. I'd say go for it.

Aside from the fact that the invested amounts would have to remain invested for several decades (if not centuries) before it started earning enough to be able to be taxed at a level that would return the collected amount back it still wouldn't be ethical.

While the student is collecting welfare someone else (everyone!) is being taxed to collect that money that is being paid out to the student. The taxpayers are being defrauded here and money that they could be holding onto and investing themselves is being sezied and used in ways decided by the person committing the fraud instead of the way they were told it was being used.

Why not modify the scenario slightly. Instead of collecting welfare, how about if the initial money came from robbing banks? Or how about just robbing people on the street? Would you still think it was ethical if someone robbed you and decided that they'd take your money and invest it and then give the proceeds from that to someone of their choosing? The money is going to a good cause in the end right?

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To match the scenario provided in the original post, the person would have to rob me, invest, earn back what he stole from me plus enough to make a donation to a cause AND THEN BRING ME BACK MY ORIGINAL $200.

Am I going to accept it, listen to his story about what he did with my money, smile and tell him that was a great idea?

I don't think so. It was my money to bein with and I should have had the option of investing it, earning and donating to a cause of MY CHOOSING, Not his.

Jerk!!! Give me back my money!

(Ooops. I may have gotten into the scenario a bit too much.)

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So what about in the extreme long run, everyone who is currently on welfare does this and will in turn reduce the income taxes paid and also contribute to charities and such. Wouldn't the reduction in income taxes be giving back to what was originally taken ?

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crayon851 wrote:

So what about in the extreme long run, everyone who is currently on welfare does this and will in turn reduce the income taxes paid and also contribute to charities and such. Wouldn't the reduction in income taxes be giving back to what was originally taken ?

No. Stop being ridiculous. You can't paint stealing from the public treasury as a good thing. Every dollar you're talking about stealing belongs collectively to us, and we could choose to do whatever you wish to do on our own behalf without sharing the proceeds with you. If you're operating under the assumption that there's a set amount set aside for welfare: then you'd be stealing from someone who needs the money more than you. Anyway you slice it; the scheme is deplorable as well as criminal. Why someone would choose to be a criminal, and a despicable criminal at that, over $200 a month is beyond me. If you're going to be a thief set you sights a little higher and don't pick on the poorest of the poor.

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This is like the opposite of trickle-down.

Give the tax breaks, grants, additional subsidies and bailouts to the corporations and they will hire more people, pay better wages, provide more benefits, buy more equipment which means more jobs....

Riiiight.

If it didn't trickle down, why would you think it would trickle up?

If it isn't right to give "community funds" to corporations, often through the same deception via lobbying and kickbacks to politicians, why would it be okay to give it to people that lie about needing welfare?

IMO, in order to accept the scenario presented originally, one would also have to accept the idea of giving money to the already super rich with the same argument that it is for the betterment of society as a whole.

Would that be okay?

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Re: Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

crayon851 wrote:

In a nut shell, you're telling a lie to help the community as well as yourself.

I think there are two ways to look at the ethics of this, and they both point to the same direction here:

1) As a pragmatic matter, you are taking $200 from the community and give back to it part of the profit on your $200 investment. For realistic rates of profit, we are talking about a $20 community payback at most, so you still have stolen $180 at least. This is wrong.

2) As a matter of principle, you lied to people to get money from them. This is wrong, and taints whatever you did with the money afterwards.

No matter how you slice it, I don't see how your scenario is anything better than lying and stealing.

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crayon851 wrote:

So what about in the extreme long run, everyone who is currently on welfare does this and will in turn reduce the income taxes paid and also contribute to charities and such. Wouldn't the reduction in income taxes be giving back to what was originally taken ?

Why not just let everyone keep their money up front and invest it themselves? Why should everyone be taxed to have the government pay money out to welfare recipients who would then give the money to someone else to invest for them?

That, of course, is aside from the fact that people who are on welfare generally don't have enough money to live on and are likely to spend the money on necessities - not invest it. That is the whole purpose of welfare systems after all.

You continue to labor under the notion that there would be enough interest on the investment that the original principle would be paid back in taxes but you fail to show how that would happen. A $200 investment would have to grow to several thousand dollars before the taxes on it would total the original $200 again. In the case of welfare recipients - who don't have much income to begin with, that $200 would have to grow to be in excess of $30,000 to $40,000 before any withdrawl would ever be taxed. At 10% annual return that would take more than 50 years and doesn't figure in for any inflation that may occur in the meantime.

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Re: Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

crayon851 wrote:

You are currently a student who is living at home and has no expenses. You go to the social services board or whatever board issues the welfare checks and apply for welfare. By chance, you've managed to get 200$ a month and your true intentions are to re-invest it to turn around a profit. Now, what you do is you give that 200$ to a parent or a relative who can reinvest that money for you to turn a profit. The intention for the use of the profit is partly for personal gain and also charitable donations. Since you are also paying taxes on your profit, which say manage to equal the amount of welfare you receive for each month while also donating another percent of the profit to charity or some community services program. Is this ethical ?

That depends. Did the student lie to the government in order to qualify for the welfare program? If not, then I'm not sure I understand the dilemma here. If the student is entitled to the money, I'm not sure why it makes an ethical difference how that money is spent (unless it is a requirement of the welfare program that the money be spent on some particular object, such as necessities).

On the other hand, if the student lied to get the welfare payments, then only a pure consequentialist (such as an act utilitarian) would argue that the beneficial results can transform the initial lie into an ethical act.

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Re: Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

joefromchicago wrote:

That depends. Did the student lie to the government in order to qualify for the welfare program?

I don't kinow of any welfare program that a student living at home would qualify for on their own.

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Re: Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

fishin wrote:

I don't kinow of any welfare program that a student living at home would qualify for on their own.

Even a hypothetical welfare program?

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Re: Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

joefromchicago wrote:

fishin wrote:
I don't kinow of any welfare program that a student living at home would qualify for on their own.

Even a hypothetical welfare program?

lol Nope, I don't know of any hypothetical welfare programs that would allow a student living at home to collect either. Razz

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Joe, are you a lawyer? Sincere question. I got the impression you are but never have seen you actually say it.

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I believe friend Joe is an attorney. He is certainly a bright and well informed guy.

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flushd wrote:

Joe, are you a lawyer? Sincere question.

Yes. Sincere answer.

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Joe is certainly no fan of Falstaff. (Previous reference will only make sense to students or lovers of Shakespeare.)

I don't give a rat's ass about the ethics, i just want to know where i can make that investment which returns 100% per month. Are we talking drugs, prostitution? What?

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You can do it through stocks. It's easier said than done, but it can be done.

Unless its a huge amount of money like a couple million.

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Welfare Ethical question its a DOozy

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