Before There Was Welfare There Was Charity

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


actually...
I want them to drop all the assistance outside of the medicare and medicaid...
of course, I believe that chaos will follow, employers will have to scramble, and well, in the end, costs will go down, wages will go up!!

as far as charity goes, the best charity a person can give to another is a pathway to independence. which is why I keep going back to lower costs, higher wages for the people!

Originally posted by snusfanatic
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Progressives are Constitutionally illiterate. I'd even argue that many of them don't understand the basic premise and purpose of the Constitution. I think they think of it as just a fancy historic document or some kind of sister document to the Declaration of Independence, rather than valid and supreme law.

edit on 25-5-2012 by snusfanatic because: (no reason given)

It is not that... I think many progressives believe that The Constitution is used as a rhetorical tool

to progress private interests and eliminate the general public from the political arena. I myself

have met a few people who use constitutionally derived logic to further the big banking agenda

which only erodes the Republic and representative democracy by putting in place a system that

is un-challengeable by the electorate. Using the premise of freedom to limit peoples input into

this countries political system is not representative of a Constitutional understanding either.

Neither is ensuring that several Billionaires and corporations are able to control the political

system and hire politicians to directly represent them. This seems to be a popular manifestation

of some Constitutionalists that claim to be champions of freedom, I don not think that

is a very high Constitutional aspiration. I will also agree that many progressive I know feel that a

document that at one time sanctioned actual slavery is a document that is based upon a false

premise of freedom and therefore flawed. I would have to disagree with them to because I

think the Constitution creates balance and harmony, if it and it's government are not highjacked

by one group claiming to be the owners of all that is virtuous.

our current economic system, and the welfare system that enables it to function as it does, seems to be working to tear our freedom from us.
there is no way that freedom can thrive in a climate where more and more people find themselves having to depend on another for their needs, be it gov't, or charity!!
you can blame the "progressives" if you like, but I think that both parties are doing their part to foster it.
I mean, it's just too danged convenient that the welfare system will feed, house, ensure health, and maybe even provide transportation to and from work to low wage employees, thus saving the business sector a ton of money to rack into their profits......

the real path out is for those corps and businesses to provide for their employees through the wages that they earn. to do this, the cost of those basic needs need to be reduced....
it's the only path.

and when talking about healthcare, an interesting fact is that everytime that the gov't expands the programs, the insurance companies will announce and increase in the premium rates and give the upper levels of management nice big bonuses soon afterwards. that should be a good clue as to where the cuts should be made right there!

Originally posted by dawnstar
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

actually...
I want them to drop all the assistance outside of the medicare and medicaid...
of course, I believe that chaos will follow, employers will have to scramble, and well, in the end, costs will go down, wages will go up!!

as far as charity goes, the best charity a person can give to another is a pathway to independence. which is why I keep going back to lower costs, higher wages for the people!

There is actually much about this answer I like. I would speak to your focus on higher wages at the expense of new business creation. The only way to get anywhere near higher wages for people is by creating an atmosphere where business can thrive in this nation. More businesses flourishing means more jobs.

There are market forces at play. When unemployment is high then it is jobs that are in demand and employers have the edge. When unemployment is low then it is employees who are in demand and they have the edge. Once unemployment is low, now individuals have the opportunities to negotiate higher wages.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


free market forces at play??? really???

ain't got enough people buying cars??? simple solution, let's have a cash for clunckers program!!
employees won't work for less than they can live on?? simple solution, we can invent food stamps, heap, hud, and a myriad of other programs so they will want to be paid less!!
can't get customers to buy your overpriced goods, or pay your overpriced rent?? that's okay, we've got programs to help you out!!!

there is no free market!! if there was, the healthcare system certainly wouldn't be standing the way it is now! it wouldn't have enough patrons to keep half the doctors busy even!

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Before there was welfare and charity,there was survival of the fittest.


Ironic back in the day,Doctors would take food, handyman work,etc,for everyday ailments,as payment.

We have lost our Moral compass........

S&F

reply to post by dawnstar

free market forces at play??? really???

I didn't say free market forces, I said market forces, and yes really to market forces. It matters not whether the market is free or not, market forces are always at play. Supply and demand applies to all markets.

ain't got enough people buying cars??? simple solution, let's have a cash for clunckers program!! employees won't work for less than they can live on?? simple solution, we can invent food stamps, heap, hud, and a myriad of other programs so they will want to be paid less!! can't get customers to buy your overpriced goods, or pay your overpriced rent?? that's okay, we've got programs to help you out!!!

None of this nonsense has anything to do with market forces and certainly has nothing at all to do with free markets.

there is no free market!!

There are free markets, just not in America. Besides, this argument is just a strawman anyway.

if there was, the healthcare system certainly wouldn't be standing the way it is now! it wouldn't have enough patrons to keep half the doctors busy even!

You have no idea what you're talking about. If there were a free market there wouldn't be a "health care system", and whatever hospitals could not survive a free market would close and some will flourish as any business would under a free market system.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

You have no idea what you're talking about. If there were a free market there wouldn't be a "health care system", and whatever hospitals could not survive a free market would close and some will flourish as any business would under a free market system.

exactly my point....only it wouldn't just be the healthcare system, it would be much of the economy. and it's not a strawman argument. the gov't has diverted a very large amount of money out of the taxpayer's pockets and into select segments of the economy, as well has given many discretionary spending money that they wouldn't have had. those who've been at the recieving end have adapted to this diversion to the point where they can't function without it in many cases. it might be wise to do a little preparation before you just cut the cords and expect "charity" to clean up the mess???

and yes, I think I know what I am talking about....
there are natural market forces, supply and demand, but when you have the gov't there ensuring that the customers will be there whatever the cost of the products, well, it distorts those forces...there is demand that wouldn't otherwise be there. and the supply of workers willing to work for a pathetic wage would be much lower.

reply to post by dawnstar

it's not a strawman argument.

It most certainly is a strawman. I spoke to market forces, and that was it. I spoke to supply and demand, you attempted to make my argument about free markets. I never brought free markets into the equation. It was simply you pretending that I had. That is a strawman.

and yes, I think I know what I am talking about

If you knew what you're talking about you wouldn't have relied upon a logical fallacy.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Originally posted by snusfanatic
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Progressives are Constitutionally illiterate. I'd even argue that many of them don't understand the basic premise and purpose of the Constitution. I think they think of it as just a fancy historic document or some kind of sister document to the Declaration of Independence, rather than valid and supreme law.

edit on 25-5-2012 by snusfanatic because: (no reason given)

Worse, they view the people as idiots who do not understand what is Constitutional or isn't. While many people today have no clue as to what the Constitution say's and how that applies to them, progressives who think all people are stupid, outside of themselves and a few select of course, they're profoundly flustered and have no idea what to do or say when confronted with someone who does understand the Supreme Law of the Land and how that applies to government

Everything the both of you said implied that progressives are idiots for not understanding the Constitution, yet you turned around and said the worst thing about them is that they consider people as idiots for not understanding the Constitution. Just a tad bit hypocritical, imo.

I'm a progressive and I fully understand the purpose of the constitution. From the top of my head...

The Constitution is what created the Federal Government and formed a Republic by separating it into three different branches to offer checks and balances so that it could not get out of control. It is the reason we are a Constitutional Republic and NOT a true democracy, as so many sorely misunderstand. It is the Federal Government that is meant to serve the states and their people and is why only the states have the power to amend the Constitution, not the federal government.

Another misunderstanding is that it GIVES us rights when, in actuality, it most certainly does not. There is no such thing as a Constitutional right. Only Constitutionally protected rights. It is the purpose of the Federal Government to protect those rights, not change them, limit them, or take them away all together for whatever contrived reason.

Many seem to think that the only rights we have are the ones highlighted in the Constitution. This is not so since it does not give us rights in the first place. It only highlights the ones the framers deemed to be most important to protect. It is why we can amend the Constitution to include more rights to charge the Federal gov't with protecting, e.g. the 14th Amendment, as long as such an amendment does not violate other Constitutionally protected rights.

Was this a perfect analysis? Probably not...but I think I did a pretty good job considering I just laid it all out pretty quickly.

Maybe you two shouldn't generalize so much. It's insulting to your own intelligence.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


in so many ways, those market forces are warped so badly, important segments of our economy could not stand without the influx of money from the gov't....
it distorts any validity of "supply and demand"

reply to post by nunya13

Many seem to think that the only rights we have are the ones highlighted in the Constitution. This is not so since it does not give us rights in the first place. It only highlights the ones the framers deemed to be most important to protect. It is why we can amend the Constitution to include more rights to charge the Federal gov't with protecting, e.g. the 14th Amendment, as long as such an amendment does not violate other Constitutionally protected rights.

You had a great post up until this moment, and then you went and contradicted yourself. There is no need to create any new Amendments to enumerate any other rights than "civil rights", but the Bill of Rights are not "civil rights" they are unalienable rights. There is no need to enumerate any other unalienable rights because of the Ninth Amendment which makes clear that all enumerated rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other rights retained by the people.

The contradiction lies in your referencing of the 14th Amendment, which in general terms is a mistake Progressives often make, and even Conservatives, but mostly Progressives. The 14th Amendment is an atrocious Amendment, it is a racist Amendment, and it has had the most horrible effect of turning all unalienable rights into "civil rights for citizens". While the 13th Amendment was wholly necessary and prohibits slavery, the 14th Amendment turns around and invites all people who are citizens to become slaves of the federal government.

Do you understand why the 14th Amendment was written? I am rooting for you and hope you can avoid the trap so many Progressives fall into when attempting to defend the 14th Amendment.

Originally posted by dawnstar
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

in so many ways, those market forces are warped so badly, important segments of our economy could not stand without the influx of money from the gov't....
it distorts any validity of "supply and demand"

Market forces are a part of natural law, they are not inventions of humanity. It is just the way things work. Market forces include supply and demand, not "distort the validity of supply and demand".

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


During the later years of human industry the peasants began to lose their jobs to machines because the lords made favorable profit from the machines. Unwittingly to the lords, this would also cause a lose in their tax revenue. When the lords discovered this, they became infuriated and demanded increased taxes from the peasants they had kept on as workers.

That sound about right?

Seriously though, the 1% own practically everything and they're not letting go of it. Of course they know this, so they make up lies to keep their workers from questioning their actions.

Only way to solve it is to force the 1% to share but that's not going to happen.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


okay, you just want to pick apart words, pretend you have no idea what I am saying, and I don't want to play the game...

another natural law.....

dependency=servitude.....

reply to post by dawnstar


The ones who warped those prices and market forces are the gubment by giving the AMA a monopoly on medical licensing and the AMA. The AMA used its monopoly to greatly reduce the number of new doctors trained by medical schools and drive up prices.

They reduced the number of medical school graduates from 28,000 per year in 1904 to only 2,000 per year today. The shortage of doctors has added greatly to the cost of medical care and the cost to the doctors to get their education.

The first generations of doctors made a pretty penny from this practice but, later generations of doctors have become overburdened with debt in order to pay the rising cost of the ever-fewer medical school slots forcing them to raise their fees even more just to keep up with their debts.

The AMA created a cartel to limit the number of doctors and drive costs through the roof.

The AMA also sets the prices for procedures making it unprofitable to run a primary care office in favor of fancy, often unnecessary procedures.

Imagine what medical prices would be today if we turned out over ten times the doctors we do today from the medical schools, all of them competing for customers in a market already flooded with doctors?

reply to post by dawnstar


Dependency = servitude is indeed a natural law. I am not pretending as if I don't know what you are saying, although you are not communicating clearly what you mean. I am correcting your bad communications. Supply and demand does not have its "validity" distorted. What does get distorted is the price of goods when cartels collude with each other to horde supply to raise demand, as just one example of what does get distorted but is not supply and demand that is being distorted it is the perception of supply that is being distorted.

Don't get mad at me because you are communicating economics poorly. It is just not true that the "validity" of supply and demand gets distorted.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by allintoaccount


The expletives at the top are greedier than we are but they are also just as smart. They are apex predators. You shouldn't be rude with people just because they cannot understand a situation. You should help them understand it politely.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Originally posted by dawnstar
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

in so many ways, those market forces are warped so badly, important segments of our economy could not stand without the influx of money from the gov't....
it distorts any validity of "supply and demand"

Market forces are a part of natural law, they are not inventions of humanity. It is just the way things work. Market forces include supply and demand, not "distort the validity of supply and demand".

market forces are not human, markets are for trade and should not be used for capitalizing on greed or misfortune.