The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 3, Thread 13.

17. your class envy is showing
Fri, Nov 27, 1998 - /EST
sully

sun bird
If you want cradle to grave care, go to Cuba, or China, or North Korea where communism/socilism is alive and well. Under a capitialist system you are responsible for your own welfare. You have a right to succeed or fail without government interference either way. I am not responsible for my neighbor but I would be a sorry ass human being if I let him strave and freeze. I will support charities when my fortune is good. I do not want the government to take my money in excessive taxes and spend it in ways I do not approve. I especially despise it when Congress uses my money to buy votes from dependent groups who do nothing but suck off the wealth of this country and return nothing in exchange but a new generation of parasites.

18. Oh, get off the "class envy" horse, sully
Fri, Nov 27, 1998 - 10:16 AM/EST
SunBird

Is this how you prove to yourself that you're higher-class than everybody else?

The point that I was making is that IN A CAPITALIST SYSTEM, those who earn low wages contribute as much, as often more, to the entire society as those who earn more. And since their needs and wants are usually pretty simple, it seems only fair that they should be met by society. Why should a guy who puts in 45 or 50 hours a week in a factory be unable to afford medical insurance for his kids? Or a decent place to live close enough to work that he can spend some time with them before they go to bed?

You're right about one thing though -- some of the ways the U.S. government spends taxpayer funds are appalling. But we all have different ideas about what welfare programs are worthwhile, don't we? Personally I think tax breaks for people who make big bucks from other people's labor are evil and should be abolished immediately, in part because they only encourage the capital gains crowd to consider themselves superior to other Americans.

19. i am not high class
Fri, Nov 27, 1998 - 5:36 PM/EST
sully

Sunbird,
in case you are wondering, I make about $50,000 a year. Your argument about minimum wage is ignoring economics. Lets say that minimum wage is $2.00 an hour. But to an employer, your labor is only worth $1.00 an hour. How does he make up for that extra $1.00 an hour overhead? He definately will not hire more people. He will have to pass on that $1.00 an hour on to his customers. That will reduce his competion with other firms and he may have to go out of business and the worker making $2.00 is now making nothing.
Market forces says that if an employee is worth only $1.00 per hour, that is what he should be paid. An employee can hire more workers for the same price, reducing unemployment and increas the worth of his business improving his competative position.

Multiply the above by the millions of employees in the country and you can see that that $1.00 really adds up. That is the main flaw with minimum wage, it is a job killer. If employees are paid for what they are worth to an employer other than what the government says they are worth (a power not authorized in the Constitution in the first place) there would be more entry level jobs for young people and less of them on the streets to commit crimes.
Actually, government statistics show that most employees do not work for more than 6 months on minimum wage, they usually are promoted or find other higher paying jobs.
Minimum wage is a political device that liberals use to show :they care". if the liberals really cared, they would allow market forces to set the wages. But they get their votes from the unemployed and welfare receipents so it is in their political interests to keep this farce going.

20. Theocrats and the Media
Fri, Nov 27, 1998 - 9:50 PM/EST
shuar

Sully, You mention Cuba, North Korea, etc. as examples of welfare-statism, but how about the countries of northern Europe, which provide infinitely more "benefits" cradle to grave than are provided in the U.S. the reason they do so is that they understand the devastation which happens when societies are dramatically divided between haves and have-nots. Their societies were ruined twice in this century by total wars. They finally learned the lesson that reasonable societies provide housing, healthcare, and an income floor for the poorest member of society. The US, on the other hand, is by comparison a backward looking society practicing an updated form of social darwinism: let only the fittest survive. Throw crumbs to the unfit. And, by the way, Cuba, with all its troubles (many caused by our embargo) still provides the best healthcare and education by far in all of Central America to ordinary citizens

21. Economics
Sat, Nov 28, 1998 - 8:11 PM/EST
j2saret

The problem in production in a consumer driven society is asigning the true value added to a product by each person in the chain from conception of the product, through acquisition of raw materials, production, promotion and sales, shipping and accounting of profits. In this chain, who is to say how much production workers add to the value and how much the C.E.O. of the company adds. Why the C.E.O. of course, thats why he takes home 50 times as much as the person on the production line. Costs and profits can be divided in a lot of different ways, the one we use here promotes greed and "theft by fountain pen"
John (who has been in small business management, big business management and now works for a pseudo-government corporation in a job with long hours but no overtime.)

22. socialism in the west
Sat, Nov 28, 1998 - 11:24 PM/EST
sully

shuar,
Most western European countries have been pulling back form socialism. France is trying to also pull back, but riots in the streets is not making that possible now. Maybe when France goes broke, they will change. Can you tell me how many eastern European countries stuck with socialism when the Soviet boot was removed from their head?

In theory, Marxism sounds great. In practice it simply does not work because of human nature to do better than their neighbor. The only way it can work is to deny all freedoms to it citizens and throw dissents in "reeducation" camps. that is the way the US is moving now.

23. John's analogy of the couch.
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 10:03 AM/EST
j2saret

Sully, let us pretend for a moment that four of us are trying to move a large, heavy, oak framed couch into a house.
There is you an average person, me prohibited by his doctor from lifting more than 25 lbs until his surgery heals, Able a slightly larger than average male who for his own reasons has spent many years body-building and weight lifting and last there is Zak your stereotypical "90 lb weakling" We confer and assign tasks. I will hold open the doors and spot clearances for the couch, you and Zak will lift the front of the couch and Able will lift the rear.
Able, protests vehemently: "What a minute I'm carrying as much weight as the three of you, this is unfair I'm being penalized for developing my strength, what is this? socialism? communism? I won't do it." He puts down his end of the couch and walks away.

Able is 1. A hero on the order of John Gault
2. A selfish person
3. Fill in the blank

For purposes of this discussion the house can be assumed to stand for the United States.
The couch symbolizes the ordinary and necessary operations of government from which all will benefit.
The four friends are citizens.

John
(so Plato I'm not)

24. sully: please consult the 9/19/98 Time Mag. article on corporate welfare.
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 2:55 PM/EST
Mark

"Successful" corporate leeches drain more from our collective well-being than does the "wellfare class."

SunBird's post 18 is succinct and precise.

Nice analogy by j2saret. Corporate America alternative to the analogy: Couchco promises city gvt. to hire 4 permanent couchmovers in return for $80 thou annual tax breaks; 1 year later, 3 couchmovers are laid off, but the breaks go on.

25. couches and corporate welfare
Mon, Nov 30, 1998 - /EST
sully

Government should not be moving couches, the private market or personal initiative should. The people moving the couch are either professional movers who are paid to move it or friends helping out another friend. In the former case, payment for services rendered is expected after the couch is moved, the latter helping a friend, not the government telling other people to move the couch. The way your example comes out in not the United States, but socialism. That is why socialism fails, no one will work harder than other persons because there is no personal profit in doing so.

As for "corporate welfare", a term that was created to fuel anger towards evil corporations, I believe that government should not interfere either to hurt or help a business. Therefore, corporate welfare needs to be eliminated also with all other government handouts.