The Bern Identity

Discussion in 'Politics' started by nitro, Jan 18, 2016.

  1. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    I have visited some of these countries where they have "solved" this problem. The people live in shanty towns of free housing where there is no land-ownership and no social program support from the government. These countries are third world wrecks and the people living in the "free" housing are desperately poor. Should the U.S. sink to this level? Should the next shanty town be placed next to your current home?
     
    #541     Mar 12, 2016
  2. piezoe

    piezoe

     
    #542     Mar 12, 2016
  3. nitro

    nitro

    For you to study. I submit that it is not perfect. But there is no perfection when it comes to people that are down and out. Only humane solutions.

    "...The Scandinavian countries are often thought of as quite similar variations of the ‘social/democratic’ welfare state model. However, experiences from the three countries show that there are variations not only among, but also within the countries when it comes to levels of homelessness, policy responses and intervention strategies. A main distinction is between the ‘housing first’ and ‘normalizing-oriented’ approaches found in Denmark and Norway and the widespread use of the staircase model in Sweden..."

    http://feantsaresearch.org/IMG/pdf/article-2.pdf
    http://www.feantsaresearch.org/IMG/pdf/kallmen_blid_ws11_evaluation_of_hf.pdf
     
    #543     Mar 12, 2016
  4. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    Fair enough... I will read the information.
     
    #544     Mar 12, 2016
  5. nitro

    nitro

    Sanders: Don't blame my supporters for violence at Trump rally

    "Washington (CNN)Bernie Sanders said Saturday that his supporters were not to blame for the unrest that led to the cancellation of a Donald Trump rally in Chicago, instead accusing the Republican front-runner of encouraging violence.

    "I don't think our supporters are inciting. What our supporters are doing is responding to a candidate who has, in fact, in many ways, encouraged violence," Sanders said Saturday at a press conference in Chicago."When he talks about ... 'I wish we were in the old days when you could punch somebody in the head.' What do you think that says to his supporters?"

    Sanders also referred to an incident earlier this week in which a black protester was sucker-punched by a Trump supporter as he was being led out of a rally.

    "So the issue now is Donald Trump has got to be loud and clear and tell his supporters that violence at rallies is not what America is about and to end it," Sanders said.

    RELATED: Trump supporters, protesters clash after Chicago rally postponed

    At a campaign event in Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday, Trump accused Sanders supporters -- some of whom chanted the senator's name at the Chicago rally on Friday after it was canceled -- of helping incite violence.

    "Some represented Bernie, our communist friend," Trump said.

    At a rally in Cleveland later Saturday, Trump doubled down on his accusation when a protester disrupted his event moments after it began.

    "You know Bernie was saying Mr. Trump should speak to his crowd," Trump said. "You know where they come from? Bernie's crowd. They're Bernie's crowd," Trump said to cheers from the crowd..."


    http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/12/politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump/index.html
     
    #545     Mar 12, 2016
  6. Ricter

    Ricter

    We already "sunk" to that level, at least once.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts
     
    #546     Mar 12, 2016
  7. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    There are still states that have homestead acts where you can build a house on rural property and have possession of the land for free after a number of years of occupancy. However the house build must meet size and value requirements - it can't be a mere third world shanty.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2016
    #547     Mar 12, 2016
  8. There are a couple problems with your plan. Inexpensive housing has already been tried. They're call "The Projects", aka ghettos. Didn't work, won't work. Food Stamps, LINK Cards, SNAP, all well intentioned plans that are scammed and exploited from those that provide them to those that use them. The whole thing needs to be streamlined and diligently regulated. Welfare is probably the most abused plan of all. That needs a complete overall. They need to change the availability to those who keep spitting out kids. When someone applies for welfare, they should get whatever the benefit is for the kids they have at that time, and that time only. Have a kid while you're on welfare, it's on you. Have another, tubes get tied, and sperm donor is tracked down, gets the bill, and gets nuts cut. The baby makers and the baby machines are out of control. All of these bastard children lead to high rates of drug and alcohol addiction, high crime, and endless poverty. The hopelessness they endure is self induced. Drastic problems require drastic measures.
     
    #548     Mar 13, 2016
  9. nitro

    nitro

     
    #549     Mar 13, 2016
  10. piezoe

    piezoe

    Yours is one of the opinions on ET I have great respect for. I would value your comments on what I have written below. I will add that the conditions you have spoken of above, unless we were describing the situation in the United States today, would not, in general, be descriptive of the advanced nations we regularly compare ourselves to. Also, it is good for us to keep in mind that the extreme skew we find in the wealth distribution may be reflected to some extent in average and median values for such things as property tax, etc., and therefore may give a distorted view of what is more commonly the case.

    Here below are my general comments on which I would be much obliged to have your honest comment and criticism:

    In the U.S., we have an economy where welfare competes effectively with unskilled labor's wages in many areas of the country. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. In 1966 it was $10.50/hr!

    The U.S.trails all other advanced nations in social services. This is telling us that competition between labor's wages and welfare is not due to welfare being too generous, but instead is being caused by wages being far too low. Wages for un- and minimally skilled labor must rise to a level that competes effectively with welfare.
    The greatest economic health is found in those parts of the country where the minimum wage is much higher than the Federal mandate.

    We have unwittingly incorporated perverse incentives into welfare qualification in some States. This is especially noticeable in pockets of poverty in the deep South, where misalignment of incentives and bad policies beget even more dependence on welfare. We are moving in the wrong direction in those areas. In general, in those States where medicaid wasn't expanded, the only way a person forced by circumstances to try to live on very low wages, or food stamps alone, can access the main welfare system and routine medical care is to have one or more dependents. The more dependents an indigent person has, the more they can draw from the welfare system. We have created an incentive for single women to become mothers, and the more children those mothers bear the greater the financial support they are eligible to receive. Statistically these unmarried women, together with their male partners, are producing the next generation of welfare mothers and fathers. Incentives are clearly misaligned.

    By pushing for a living wage for all full-time workers and universal access to healthcare, the Sanders proposals will go a long way toward reversing the perverse incentives we have built into our welfare eligibility requirements. Of course This must be accompanied by job expansion for low skilled labor. That is also addressed by the Sanders plan.

    Sanders has offered the most detailed plan of any candidate for how he would pay for his proposals. (see Sanders.com) I've looked at these proposals. They are completely doable, and far more easily than one might imagine. Which raises the question, "Why has it taken us so long to act in all or best interests?" I can only guess it is because we have been stuck in our ideologies so firmly that we have become inept at logically weighing advantages and disadvantages. We call Sanders proposals socialist, as if they were something unusual in the U.S. economy. In fact, the economy is already both socialist and capitalist, and if Sanders proposals are adopted we will still have a largely capitalist economy. All modern economies are mixed economies. The U.S. will remain an economy with the greatest capitalist component. What Sanders is proposing is mainstream in the world's political landscape and in comparison with prosperous periods of our twentieth century past. What we have been doing since the 1980s is radical by comparison.

    I have said, many times, in these Forums that there is plenty of money, but our priorities are in the wrong order. We can either entrench ourselves in ideology, and experience deteriorating social conditions, that will lead to the rise of nationalism and more Donald Trumps, or we can recognize our mistakes and correct them. We should be asking how is it possible that all these other countries we compare ourselves to are doing so much better socially then we are? There is no reason we can't compete both socially and technologically. Why does it have to be either or? That should make no sense to anyone. Our goal should be to compete in both areas. As it is, we are only technologically competitive. We could do so much more.​
     
    #550     Mar 13, 2016
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