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Entitlement America And The High Cost Of "Free"
Almost three years ago we first highlighted the real math behind the surging entitlement class that America has become. So why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? This is the ugly reality we illustrated just six months ago and the situation - amid what is apparently called a 'recovery' remains a depressingly real sign of the times. The political allure of free is so strong that an alarming number of people choose to become wards of the entitlement/welfare state rather than captain their own destiny. Indeed, while many are 'proud', 49% of American households now receive one or more government transfer benefits amounting to 18% of all personal income and a burden of $7,400 for every American - seemingly threatening the supposed self-reliance that has long characterized the American national psyche.
Via the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
Why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? In 2011, the U.S. government spent over $800 billion this “welfare,” exceeding expenditures on Social Security or Medicare.
In the Denver arena where Mr. Obama gave his DNC 2008 acceptance speech, a woman in the audience became overwhelmed by the speech and said that she no longer needed to worry if she could make her car or mortgage payments because he would take care of it for her. In Cleveland, a woman claimed that she was going to vote for President Obama again because he gave her a free cellphone (along with a litany of other entitlement giveaways). Before you growl, you should know that the free cellphone program was instated by President Bush in 2008 through the FCC’s Universal Service Fund. Fees for these “free” cellphones are paid by all telecommunications service providers out of the revenue received from their paying customers. Despite the political rhetoric over the past half century, entitlements were actually highest during Republican administrations. The political allure of free is bi-partisan.
The political allure of free is so strong that an alarming number of people choose to become wards of the entitlement/welfare state rather than captain their own destiny. Economist Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute believes that Americans have become a nation of takers, threatening the self-reliance that has long characterized our national psyche. Eberstadt (2012, p. 4) presents data showing that entitlement payments to Americans, since 1960, have risen annually by 9.5 percent. He argues that over the past 50 years the ever-increasing array of transfer payments to Americans have risen 727 percent. In 2010 such payments alone totalled $2.3 trillion with Social Security (for old age and disability) accounting for 31 percent, Medicare 24 percent, Medicaid 18 percent, Income Maintenance 12 percent, other giveaways (free cell-phones, support for a broken education system, housing, the arts, etc.) 8 percent, and Unemployment Insurance 6 percent (Eberstadt 2012, C1-2). This has resulted in 49 percent of American households receiving one or more government transfer benefits (Eberstadt 2013); this amounts to 18 percent of all personal income and a burden of $7,400 for every American.
The Balance Sheet on Government Giveaways
Our economic analysis shows that retirees who worked for 40 years and then live 20 years past retirement will receive more than twice what they, and their employers, contributed over their lifetime of working. Only retirees who survive a decade or less after their retirement do not take more out of Social Security than they contributed. Most people will agree that the retirees should receive his/her Social Security benefits at retirement. But with people living longer, who will pay for all the additional benefits now promised? Most people who have not done their homework (including Congress) fail to realize that the numbers for Medicare benefits exceed those for Social Security. Since 1965, Medicare required less than a 3 percent contribution from a worker’s gross wages, yet most people receive over $250,000 in medical benefits before reaching the age of 74, assuming no catastrophic illness. You can do the math on your own wages, assuming a lifetime salary of $100,000 per year for all 40 working years, a worker will have paid in only $120,000 into the Medicare system. Congress, after agreeing to take care of everyone after retirement for the rest of their lives, has broken a sacred trust and used incoming contributions to fund other government expenditures, instead of letting the contributions build over the past 50 years.
The Political Allure of Free Runs Parallel with Tough Economic Times
The U.S. Census data show that in 2000 the percentage of Americans existing at or below the poverty level was 11.3 percent or 31.1 million people. The 2010 census showed a 75 percent increase in reported poverty by Americans rising to 15.1 percent or 46.2 million people from the previous census. As with most government statistics, there is ample room for politicized error. For example, when people get laid off from work, there is reason to believe that many join the underground economy and do not report their income. Rahn (2009) reports that 26.5 million households are either unbanked or underbanked (from FDIC data) and that while the economy may be improving slightly, the growth in the underground economy should be decreasing but isn’t.
Another contributing factor is a measure called labor force participation. It is the total work force that includes people working and those actively looking for work as a percent of the noninstitutionalized population. The Reason Foundation’s Randazzo (2012) points to a circularity problem—when the unemployment rate goes down the labor force participation rate should rise. After the recession ended in 2009, both rates are tracking in the same direction—the labor force participation rate was 64.9 percent, the lowest since 1981and the unemployment rate was 10 percent. In 2012 the labor participation rate had dropped to 63.4 percent and the unemployment rate also dropped to 7.8 percent. Randazzo suggests this is because participation in the labor force has been declining for over a decade. Despite President Obama’s recent crowing about jobs, the drop in unemployment has factually less to do with the creation of real jobs than with the fact that more Americans are dropping out of the workforce for the allure of free things from their government. Randazzo believes lower workforce participation will be the labor norm of the future.
Why work if you can’t find a comparable job to what you had before you were laid off and the government will give you free living expenses? We have analyzed what a single parent with three children is eligible to receive from the state and federal governments in a given year, working a part time job at minimum wage living in Florida (a relatively benefit-frugal state). Free and subsidized benefits include: housing, welfare, utilities, telephone, school breakfast and lunches, child care, medical care, food stamps, commissary food, prescription and non-prescription medications, education, education testing, and refundable tax credits. All of these benefits are in excess of $47,000 per year, exceeding the poverty level in Florida by 200 percent.
Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research cite studies suggesting that in difficult economic times approximately 30-40 percent of those applying for disability would return to the workforce if the economy were better and disability were not an available option (Autor and Duggan 2006, p. 19).
Choosing Disability over Work
Many people add to their free government benefits through working in the underground economy and pay taxes on none of it.
Others choose another free government benefit. Since mid-2010 (the date when millions of U.S. citizens exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment insurance) the number of workers on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits rose by 22 percent, an increase of 2.2 million people.
Workers with disability now get nearly a 20 percent chunk of the total Social Security benefits budget and the number has increased (Kowalski 2012). Kowalski refers to a government study that shows that 99 percent of people who have been granted SSDI benefits remain on this entitlement the rest of their lives. Economists David Autor and Mark Duggan (2006) argue that the spiral in SSDI claims by the non-elderly adult population is the result of three main factors: (1) Congress has dropped the threshold for receiving disability benefits (inability to function in a work-like setting); (2) Congress has increased the level of benefits for recipients giving people more incentive to apply. (3) Congress increased the number of people in the workforce covered by SSDI (Autor and Duggan 2006, p. 8-11). The allure of free has made the political class very proud of its accomplishments in creating a welfare-dependent state.
When government programs are seemingly free, recipients tend to use them more. Medicare is a perfect example, where pharmaceutical and diagnostic tests multiply with the change in new benefits (Pauley 2004). Research shows that even when controlling for age and medical condition, if medical care is a bargain, people on Medicare as opposed to people on private insurance utilize 50 percent more care (Matthews and Littow 2011). They point to the fact that especially when Medicare patients have supplemental care in the private sector, their out-of-pocket expense nears zero, encouraging even more utilization. They conclude: “Since private insurers are much better at controlling utilization and reducing fraud, why not turn to the private sector to resolve Medicare’s excessive utilization?” (p. A16)
Mises (1990) analyzed this double-edged sword of government dependency and the cost to human value.
Today, George Gilder (2012) echoes this risk by pointing out that 70 percent of government discretionary spending devalues human life by paying people to be disabled, sick, reproduce, be unemployed, unmarried, retired, poor, homeless, hapless, or drugged.
He believes these supposed problem-solving programs accomplish nothing beyond expanding themselves by spreading dependence and tragic waste and saying: “Reforming them [the first rule of bureaucracy (Pettegrew and Vance 2012)] is all upside.”
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You should create a blog where you get down into the details, including finances. You could cover your times in the Oil bus and how you are making your present plan work. You might get more interest than you think....
Thanks...I actually did have a blogspot thing going for a little while. Got maybe one other person to read it in 6 months...LOL.
I guesss you need to resort to the naked lady pictures...
Now we know who John Galt is AND what he's up to.
Good on ya', Whatta.
Look out for drones
We live in a spot wherre we get regualr low-level flyovers by military aircraft doing training of some sort....they could get me anytime they wanted cuz I am used to their presence!
Another thing...Google Earth maps and Bing maps....geez, we hear airplanes buzzing around, flying circular patterns photographing everything. There are at least two series of those maps, and that are of such detail, that I can see myself out on the tractor, that I can count goats inthe pasture, etc. So much for privacy. The fvckers.
What! That's outrageous!
Next you'll be telling me they monitor my calls and emails!
I have my rights! They can't do this!
Bailing out the banks and left supporting organizations like GM and GE killed whatever was left of white protestant work ethic in America. If the Fed and Govt tell people certain corporations are entitled to public capital, why wouldn't individuals believe they are entitled as well? Obama's presidency exemplifies this attitude change.
I doubt bailing out GM and GE killed the work ethic. It doesn't affect me, just my good luck, but I've seen in countless others the psychological/culural effect of affirmative action. The non-minority middle class, especially men, unquestionably voted with their behavior: If success that was previously hard won by children of the non-elite through study and discipline was going to be given away to equalize resuilts on a racial, ethnic, and gender basis, then playing the system with no old-fashioned work ethic becomes acceptable. It's much like the reaction to sub-prime mortages: Once people see others walking away from mortgages after spending their income on luxuries, the practice becomes a disease. If a prestige college degree keeps affecting hiring outcomes, and if legacies and minorities keep getting (the now known) 140-250 point SAT bonus, and if you add in the athelete spots, less than 30% of a top-30 college's freshman spots are available to the old "study hard, score well on the tests, be prepared in both mathematics and writing, and you have a shot" story. You don't. As for SAT's communicating nothing, why is it then that elite colleges generally do not include the SAT's of minority admits when reporting their numbers to US News &World Report and other ranking outfits? The reason is obvious: Everyone seeking to be part of a smart competitive peer-group (knowing employers will care), still knows the SAT's, together with work, activity leadership success, and demonstrable analytic and technical skills, do in fact signal a high level of ability.
GM and GE are examples of non-bank bad actors being entitled to public welfare. I threw it in because when you say "bank bailouts" everyone assumes you mean right leaning organizations even though Wall Street banks are actually left wing and everyone likes to sweep the non-bank bailouts under the rug. It sounds like you are making a point that only elites have a chance to succeed (write more affirmatively), but my point is about the change in national attitude that occurred after the financial crisis. If organizations get government handouts, why not me? Obama is the poster boy for "you deserve free stuff" and him and Bernanke will not be remembered well.
But in fact the capital arms of those corporations, dealing in subprime's, is as much to blame for torching those companies as union contracts.
When the big boys steal in broad daylight, everyone else "gets mines".
Go to Mexico and see for yourself. Or go to Chicago or Detroit. No difference.
We crossed the Rubicon in 2008 by bailing out the criminal frauds masquerading as banks. Everything else you read is a fluff piece. Why do you think you read about sodomites in the boy scouts, Kardashian and shit daily instead of the biggest fraud in our nation's history? And it is STILL unfucking prosecuted? By a "populist" administration even?!
Ever hear of Ally Bank -if not, think GMAC.
Rewarding sloth, now that's the ticket. I prefer to work and try to get ahead on my own, call me stupid, care not.
Abi,
Good for you. Virtue must be its own reward because the current system pisses all over the honest, hardworking, taxpaying, God fearing person.
"Virtue must be its own reward because the current system pisses all over the honest, hardworking, taxpaying, God fearing person"
If you don't earn any money then you don't pay any taxes.
You only NEED food, clothes, shelter and love. Learn how to LOVE properly in the fullest sense of the word (think Ghandi rather than gigolo) and the food clothes and shelter seem to sort themselves out.
Since I got poor, I NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD. I'm just pissed that it took me ten years to realise that you really can opt out of "money". You just have to learn to deal with people directly for what you need and keep your needs reasonable. (My needs aren't reasonable, so I had to learn to fix broken luxury items, which fortunately I can do very well. Even though it pays nothing in terms of "money" having solid fixing skills is like getting a 90% discount off the cost of any luxury item. Since I discovered last week that I can run a small water cooled petrol engine off 5 different fuels, one of which is "free for the effort of taking" I'm expecting my energy costs to plummet to zero fairly soon. That is ony a possibility because I got poor and learned to have a nice lifestyle for a fraction of the energy I used to use.
Only watch someone else's TV IF you really must. The time and money you will save both directly and indirectly is enormous. Plus having developed sufficient life skills to have someone want you to come and watch TV with them is a reward in itself.
The idea of "wages" and "money" was only invented so that people with no interpersonal skills or who can only think in terms of evil schemes could have a chance to survive and learn to be better people. Unfortunately it's grown a bit too large to be useful for the rest of us.
Poverty in common co-operation with your neighbour is the new "rich", come on in, the waters fine!
All this money for nothing and checks for free is promoted by CONgress, owned by lobbyists of the Internationale, like Soros, major Democrat funder, and Halliburton, major backer of Repugnants.
The revolving door sends CONgress to higher paid jobs for the corporatists, and the Republic is ruined, just as nazionists have done in every land they inhabit or seek to dominate. See the board of Monsanto as an exemplar.
One anecdote: an eejit Markey running for Senate in MA says fishermen should take government hand outs - your money - rather than fight flawed science which reduces fishing quotas by order of a faceless bureaucracy in DC who know nothing, care nothing about traditional livelihoods hereabouts.
End the Fed, in all its forms.
We have allowed a generation of 'useless idiots' and 'educated fools' to poison the Republic, and ignore the 10th Amendment, the sovereignty of states.
Stop it.
Bureaucracy promises reform - at the cost of everyone else, loss of livelihoods in the real economy, the one that feeds people.
A generation? Not less than 3 generations. I'd go as high as 7 generations.
This shit's been in the works for over a century. The coup d'etat (Federal Reserve Act) happened A HUNDRED years ago. The palace coup (Roosevelt administration, Great Depression, WWII) happened over SEVENTY years ago. Everything since has been nothing but a footnote.
Wake the fuck up.
The fuck has been awakened.
The fuck has chosen to stay in bed.
Apparently even the fuck doesn't give a fuck.
1908 first UK state pensions because elderly people were falling into total poverty and youth unemployment was rising. Red Cross forms around the same time and receives the royal charter and we all know what they do. At that point count back 30 years and you get the tipping point.
The internal combustion engine and a 100HP is work being done with a serious reduction in human input needed. Before then any changes were relatively minor because all changes before that did not change the parameters quite the same as applying more power and massive speed increases.
People were beginning to give up in the 60's/70's, as tears in the social fabric were in full force.
This is no surprise, but only the same trend moving to a logical conclusion.
Can't the NSA track this and save the country?
NSA willl send each of us a personal copy of our "track record" via e-mail. In the margins, expect comments designed to make us feel ashamed of all that we have done in private and in public, on a bus or in a car, at work or in the bedroom.
Like Ghandi, they will assume that our shame will overpower us into shaping up and being good little citizens.
THEY WILL BE WRONG.
AGAIN.
After witnessing the following I find it hard to blame people for giving up and asking for their slice.
I used to get worked up and upset about this, but now I would feel like a fool for busting my ass to fund the Kleptoligarchy and yet get treated like an abused pack mule on the road to perdition.
Social contract broken. If there is no reward for being responsible and saving I don't want to play.
A neighbor helps neighbor, regardless of profit. A Republic is built upon all for one, one for all. It seems that you have been worn down by the false promises of that horrible extremist lie: a democracy, an easily manipulated thing. Forward...to the gulags.
Slaving to feed the kleptoligarchy only keeps it going - you work for them.
Getting some handouts might actually give people time and resources to help their neighbor.
It's a simple equation for many:
A.) Bust my ass, be gone from my kids and home for 50-60 hours a week and make $29,000
OR
B.) Get the handouts that are available, be at home with kids, have time to not be working for tax dollars that go to other people for $29,000.
At some point those of us working to feed and maintain the corrupt system are the fools.
I gave it all up 10 years ago. Now my efforts are all for my family and a couple of useful neighbors.
The federal government's stranglehold on many fields of endeavor make it possible for me and my computer to make a big score every so often through private enterprise payments caused by government mandated artificial scarcity.
I don't take a fuckin' buck from the federales. But I still have to subject myself to their beauracratic abuse on a regular basis to get paid for my work.
It's the closest thing to freedom I can figure out in my advancing state of physical decay.
If your working hard then no matter what you are not the fool. A human with a conscience works hard and finds an internal satisfaction in being productive, useful human being. You actually cannot put a price on integrity, hard work and doing things the right way regardless of what those around you are doing or not doing. It takes some kind of missing chip or filter in a person that can sleep at night knowing they are a fraud and a cheat. Don't focus on what others are doing or not doing and take satisfaction that you are living the right way and setting a good example for your children which will in turn help them grow up with the right kind of work ethic that will give them an edge over many of their peers that aren't lucky enough to have that example set for them and when faced with adversity they will crumble like a cheap suit while your children will remain strong and steady. That maybe all you can hang your hat on so to speak but, at least in my opinon that is a great deal.
These younger generations are going face adversity the like that we have never seen and they will need every ounce of courage, ingegrity, inner strength etc...that we can instill in them. I for one am frightened to death for them thinking about the society they will have to live in and manuever day in and day out.
No mention of the trillions to the Military Industrial Complex?
No mention of the endless wars?
No mention of the 800 military bases around the globe?
No mention of the billions going into the fledgling security complex to spy on us?
No mention of the trillions to bail out the banks foreign and domestic?
No mention of the $100,000,000 presidential vacation to Africa coming up?
No mention of the manufacturing offshoring party eliminating millions of well paying jobs or the H1B visa's to bring in cheaper labor to fund SS?
No mention of the corporations keeping their money offshore as a tax haven while importing their foreign produced product for free?
Entitlement America, the high cost of free? You betcha,,, but what these people are taking is pocket change compared to the corporations, financial markets, banks and governments?
When you give something, then you are entitled to something. Economic migrants and their banksters and CONgress are a blight on the Republic.
Build a Republic, not a whining brat class.
Too late.
"When you give something, then you are entitled to something"
A gift confers no rights. A gift is not a contract.
Shhh...you're going to rain on some Conservative's cycloptic rant against the little people trying to survive in this Ponzi scheme then claim that if only we'd let the corporations rule there would be a chicken in every pot because the corporations will be so benevolent...or a Liberal's confused monocular rant that we can pay for all that pork, military expansionist imperialism to police the world, AND pay everybody's way including illegal immigrants.
Please don't confuse conservatism with corporatism. They really don't have that much to do with each other.
The conservative rant is not against the little people. It against a government political body that is destroying and corrupting our society through unsustainable giveaways on all levels. The only source of wealth is a society is its production. When you incentivise people to not be productive you are destroying societie's ability to create wealth. While we know that this thing is rotten from the head down, we also know that any saving it comes from the people, not government. This concept of economic justice or even revenge against those who have lead us to this disaster will be used to destroy what is left. Sure, let just lay down, give up and eat bugs for a living. that will show them! What my father called cutting your nose off to spite your face. Justify living on welfare all you want, but that is ultimately the greatest threat to our survival you could invent. The rich and powerful will still be on top, even if it is just living in the largest cave.
Nothing is so expensive as the stuff you get from the government for free.
Here is the bottom line. Down vote me to your heart's content.
We live in a global economy where productive workers in other nations will gladly take say $2/hr. But here, one cannot live off of $8/hr. Take away FICA, gas costs, car payments, rent, there is nothing left for food.
So what we have done, not necessarily knowingly, is to provide varous subsidies to allow our workers to accept lower wages and thus compete in the global economy, while protecting them from adject poverty. Hence, earned income tax credits, food stamps, Obamaphones, etc.
Perhaps in 5 to 10 years wages in China (coupled with exchange rate adjustments) will level the playing field to where our wages can rise while being competivite, but until then, we should accept that the various federal subsidies to the poor are a necessary cost of globalization.
Globalization is the problem. Barely 13 years old, and it has wrought more ruin upon more people than any other failed theory in such a short time. Endless war, famine, poverty beyond anything known post WWII.
American jobs for Americans. Call it protectionism if you like, but in a world where consumerism is most of gdp, it requires some place to push the cart, and the USA has the most resources, human and otherwise.
Globalism needs war to conquer lands and resources; force a level playing field.
Your child won't die. Someone else's will. That is unconstitutional, not what the USA was built to be.
A cynic knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing, as Oscar Wilde said.
13 years old?
Were you born yesterday?
It's been developing since the Industrial Revolution hit its stride a century and a half ago.
You completely misunderstand the past at a fundamental level.
Bingo. Comparative Advantage vs. Absolute Advantage.
Perot was right.
No, he wasn't. American jobs didn't move to Mexico/China/protectionist target of the week. American jobs died because of over regulation and high taxes, and industries abroad grew because of minimal or no regulation and low taxes.
Throw up all the trade barriers you want. You will just get a repeat of Smoot-Hawley, only this time prices will rise greatly, and many products will become completely unavailable. The capital base required to restart domestic production is missing, having been driven away by dumb policy. Remember, capital goes where it is treated best. You can't just point a gun at the ground and command a factory to spring up.
No, cut the regulations and the taxes, and industry will return all on its own. American made still means something abroad. Maybe not for long, but it does for now.
Also, you can pay a worker $2 a day to make shoes, but you can pay a machine operator $100 an hour to make 10,000x as many shoes IF you don't have to hire a bunch of paper pushers to ensure compliance with this and that regulation.
Some person in India can't even afford the shoe's they are making. America is Rome and Rome is the market, at least for now. If the companies want to sell it here, make it hereand no more h1B Visas... because the H1B visa was thought up by traitors who hate the US.
buy the remnimbi..wear jewels
Excellent points. What this "entitlement" story boils down to is allowing Walmart and other similar slime outfits to pay the least amount possible while knowing that the government's safety net will pick up the slack for both their employees and customers. It keeps both of those groups just functional enough to rely on their crappy job with no other prospects and the customers poor enough to not upgrade their shopping options. It's a symbiotic relationship until the parasites finally bleed out the hosts, which is getting closer and closer every day.
How is that Walmart's fault? If a person isn't motivated enough to do better than a Walmart store cashier's job then how is that a corporations fault. Are you saying that a store clerk should be paid what???????? It should be viewed as a gateway or stepping stone job for a young person on thier way up or a supplemental job for an older person looking to make a few extra bucks. It should not be considered a career to raise a family on. If you try to use it in that manner you deserve to be poor and are beyond help.
Walmart is just an example. And there are not high paying jobs all over the place. In some places, Mcdonalds/Walmart are the high paying jobs. No one will ever understand this country until they have actually travelled through this country.
well maybe if walmart had not strangled government policy to create a monopoly for itself, those "cashiers" that you speak of as being deadbeats who have no interest in bettering themselves may have been "cashiers" in their own stores?
you cant completely crush small business then complain when people dont start their own businesses.
Notadouche, are you serious? walmart forced their suppliers to fire American's, shut down their factories and move to China, or lose contracts to supply Walmart. Yes, Walmart is one of the roots of evil. Walmart can legally pay people so low that they are elitible for welfare, so low they can't afford to buy food AND rent. Those were the uneducated people that used to work at the factories that were shut down and bull dozed for all of this idiotic "free trade". You are an idiot.
It's a free market. If a job at Walmart sucks so badly don't work there. No one is forcing you or anyone else to work there. Walmart didn't enact "free trade" policies and Walmart has been in the crosshair's of this government for quite awhile so they aren't exactly making policy. I do see that Walmart hires more disabled and elderly that couldn't work anywhere else. Walmart didn't force the closures of all those factories. Factories have been eroding since the 70's before Walmart was even a major player. Walmart just happens to be the enemy de jour.
CHURCH!
Take away section 8 and rents go down. Welcome to the third world.
The entitlement attitude starts at an early age. Schools (not all but there is a growing trend) are now more concerned with making sure students have high self esteem as opposed to actually learning anything. Some schools are actually doing away with F's. No one is allowed to fail anymore. Everyone is a winner.
http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/239651 If the link doesn't work copy and paste it into a browser. I will miss Seth when he leaves. The whole thing is worth watching but the last 14 seconds makes a great point.
http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/319318 This next one is a clip called 'You Can Do Anything!' which also hits the nail on the head.
A friend of mine had a painting business and was talked into some program here in California to hire people that want a second chance. Essentially people with a criminal history. Long story short, these people would purposely show up late and do a bad job to get fired so they could collect unemployment. He got to pay into the unemployment fund for 6 months after he fired someone. He didn't hire anyone through that program ever again.
So the banks received more $ in bailouts from 2008-2011 than all entitlements paid out ever, and these poor people, who are largely there because of the same banks ( and of course fed reserve and the corporate welfare off shoring country destroyers) are the entitlement class....
yep ..you got it..the banking leeches are now bigger than the host; the benefit claimers are getting there too.
I guess, unsurprisingly, ethics is not your strong point.
Care to explain how there is not moral equivalency between these two groups?
Maybe I'm serious, maybe I'm sarcastic, maybe it's a trick question, you figure it out.
Spot on Crt, the banks and banking system is at the root of our problems. The entitlement issue is an effect, not a cause. Too bad so many people sit glued to Glenn Beck who can't think themselves out of a wet paper bag.
America is getting exactly what it deserves. Re-electing the parasites in Congress repeatedly and allowing a shitty little country to dictate it's foreign and domestic policies? Yep. Exactly what it deserves.
That argument would hold water if Congress and te Congressional elections were not owned by lobbyists and PAC's. Sorry, Debt: no matter who YOU vote for, they will get elected with lobby money, and owe a debt to the lobbyists, not you.
+1 for that Redd. AIPAC is among the biggest.
Even illegals are getting freebies. Even a free college education.
The US IRS is giving earned incomed and paying for their children in Mexico. Future DNC voters.
Record food stamp usage. Why work anymore and pay all your money in taxes to support the 1% leeches and the other 50% leeches? If you can;t beat them, join them.
if 49% receive entitilements, doesn't this mean that 51% are employing/paying for them?
i think those paying should pay the going tax haven/hedge fund tax rate of zero since the employers must also be companies of people..well except because of some form of legalese that employs another 5% of the population as lawyers.
While the Norks are at it again...
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/06/17/2013061700741.html
N.Korea Brings Out Attack BoatsNorth Korean warships are busy plying both East and West Seas, including semi-submersible craft recently moved to a forward base near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea.
The semi-submersibles are normally deployed at a submarine base dozens of kilometers from the NLL. They are about 10 m long and used to carry commandos into enemy territory and can run above the surface of the water at a speed of 70 km/h but submerge 10 to 20 m if necessary. They can slip under the radar even if they run above the water and are equipped with light torpedoes.
A bit of a Catch 22. Mmmm shall I go to work so my t axes can bail out Wall St, or shall I just laze about until TSHTF....
Article like this is why I stopped reading Mises. They have lost touch with reality.
Anyone giving economic analysis let alone advice in the last 130 years without explicit reference to crude oil prices ... has no idea what they're talking about, and is irrelevant to reality.
The Austrians understand 2 of the core pillars of this insane world - government interference in economies, and debt-based fiat money - but they don't understand limits to growth, or human psychology. The irony is palpable when an Austrian accuses a (neo-)Keynesian of being deluded by the growth meme.
Bernanke has given foreign banks more money in the last 5 years
than has been paid out by welfare in the last 50 years.
If millions of people were dropping out of the workforce to take advantage of welfare, salaries should be going up as employers compete for the fewer remaining workers. That isn't happening. I can think of lots of other reasons people give up on working. Like the many employers that hire illegal aliens for $10/day. When I was a kid, you could support yourself in a small town doing things like landscaping, drywall, painting, tile. Not in most places now. Welfare doesn't pay crap unless you a single mom with kids. Social security disability less than 1,000/month for most people. That's enough to survive in cheap places but not to live very well. These estimates of welfare received are based mostly on free medical insurance. Well, that's a given in most countries. You don't need to go on welfare to get it.And in US it can cost $20K for insurance just for one person my age and that doesn't actully cover everything. You can expect to pay another couple thousand even without getting seriously ill.
A congressman who touts his born again Christianity stood up in front of God and everybody, quoted the Bible saying,"if you don't work you don't eat". What he left out was that last year he received 6 million bucks of taxpayer money in farm subsidies, his father and brother received another 9 Million bucks combined in farm subsidies for a family total of 15 million bucks for NOT farming.
I guess that if you don't work you don't eat doesn't apply to his family. If the Finchers don't work they get 15 million bucks from the taxpayers. Typical double standard from the holier than you crowd.
I once had a lot of respect for Mises, but they have become little more than a mouth piece for the corporate slave masters.
Hacksaw,the reason"they have become little more than a mouth piece for the corporate slave masters" is because it's funding comes from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Does it add up now?
The biggsest entitlement program the taxpayer is funding is the lifestyles of the politcal elite and their staffs. Factor in their never ending healthcare, pensions and insider knowledge investing benefit they have it made. Just get elected once and apparently your set with all that plus connections to the private sector or lobby firms once you leave or get thrown out of office.
I wonder how military and government service retirement is counted? Is it 'Welfare' like Social Security? How about verterans medical, the VA? Is that 'Welfare'. All those things are difinitely on the government ballance sheet as expenses.
"...So why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available?..."
what out of touch ice packed planet have you been living on, asshole? jobs are scarce and those which are plentiful are low wage high stress jobs with a dead end alley in front of them....
the rockefeller nazis love that job configuration because they despise anyone threatening their autocracy....the more serfs and idiots on the government dole the better because it creates a docile population and expands big government and big debt, the latter of which is the plutocrat's very best friend....more interest bearing fiat money to enrich a .01% and to fuck everyone else with from now till kingdom come.
It's over. We have hit the tipping point when you get moar by not working. The U.S.A. is finished.
Free up your mind and time, and stop stressing about how to fix this. There is no fix. Yellowhoard and Toady, agreed. Men, we sat down at the table and caught the tail end of the Republic. I'm 52 and a little aghast that I will probably be needing the very services that will no longer exist, right about the time they cease.
My wife just spent a $300 deductible on a 10-minute rush job by a EENT doc. Told her she had significant allergies. No px. Next.
Our Fed is a metastasizing cancer whose only concern is how to survive and grow.
Just circle the horses, choose your friends carefully and remember that empires live and die like an organism.
We have been through this many many times.
here in Socal they started busting single latina moms, some with 5 kids,who receive 3K/month gov support!? they have full time nannys Iphones and brand new Escalade!? Im sure they voted for the Bumma!
I'd like to know how they manage their money. That's pretty impressive to be single with 5 kids living of 3k a month in southern cali and be able to afford a nanny and a new Escalade. I can't do that with 3 kids living in a fly over state making something far north of 3k per month.
It's so fuckin' easy! They get CALWORKS money for babysitting each other's kids. One mom, will trade her kids off to another mom and collect the taxpayer funded 'babysitting' money from the state of California. Even kith and kin are allowed to do this. Add Section 8 housing, SNAP, TANF, free school breakfasts, lunches, after-school snacks and there's no problem getting nice cars, purses and Iphones. My second ex, rented Section 8 and all the girls had $300 designer purses, laptops and other luxuries. It was amazing.
Let me clarify my position. I have never voted for Obama and I will be back to working doing what I do best which is not freeloading on Gov't handouts. I rather got lucky as so often happens if you are at a certain place often enough. And, I decided to study creative writing and English to obtain a degree from UCLA. Which I am in the process of doing. I believe very strongly from the way that I've come to know life's workings that the impossible and the improbable are more likely to occur than what is planned by the human will. When your will is aligned with the sequence of changes about to transpire then you are ready to be where you will be.-- at the edge of change and on a very fucking wild ride indeed..
If you refuse to take Gov't handouts you will never land a job in Hollywood as a scriptwriter (as Hollywood is government all the way).
Farmers get thier handouts.
Wall street gets thier handouts (Mandatory 401K if you want to retire anyone??)
The defense sector gets thier handouts
Politicians certainly get thier handouts
And some CEO making $2-$20 million a year all the time complaining about the high tax rates ( We all know they aren't paying near the top rate) wonders why people won't do some crappy job for $8 an hour? - Perhaps our overpaid CEO's who didn't even start the company are not near as smart as they think they are?? A 4 year old could run GE and not break it.
For all of the people that actually think that some welfare mom is the problem...... well..... your not as bright as you think you are either.
Can't find employee's? That solution doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out.. RAISE THE PAY. Perhaps the CEO could take a slight pay cut.
Get a job instead of getting handouts from your financial backers at the American Enterprise Institute to write this conjured bs you rent seeking disinformation conman.
Economy is not FREE, it's created by millions of worker-consumers and debt-slaves who create everything including rent-seeking billionaire parasites that suck up all the taxpayer money and preach austerity so they can swindle more for themselves.
People like you have your view of the world locked and loaded, blaming those who were left behind, without skills, due to an educational system which purposefully spit out students with inability to think beyond the next test or sports event.
This is now a deindustrialized nation. The blue collar workers who are still working, bid low to get the job as they compete with immigrants who will work for nearly nothing.
The web site called American Progress is apparentlyh focused on world employment as I viewed a section that focused on the dropped wages of garment workers. The megawealthy CEOs do not want to pay for workers. They would prefer to keep every last cent they can. Globalism has not regard for a country and it's need for tax revenue and apparently, the politicians are in agreement (Chamber of Commerce as well).
I am sorry but you misunderstand the point that I am making. The point I am making is opposite of what you assert.
I apologize. Thank you for the correction. When garment workers barely making a living wage, in countries where 50 cents a day can give you a roof and 3 meals, are faced with cuts in their income, you just know that prison labor camps is what the goal is eventually.
Drop the cost of living to place likes China / India then cut the welfare costs to match. The only problem is if you attempt to drop the cost you blow the current set of values apart. Stupidest part of all is "nobody in work should receive any welfare" because the job should pay enough and comes about when you elevate the values in the economy far too high.
The elevation came first, the growing increasing numbers claiming welfare and the cost that comes with it comes second. Was not the other way round because consequences would have hit of things being unaffordable years ago.
while there is clearly welfare issues in US which has created a culture of dependence and entitlement.
lets also keep in mind that you cant have a system that is inheritantly and systematically designed to fuck the poor and then complain when those same poor opt out of the system.
In arguments before the US Supreme Court on the Myriad breast cancer gene patent, the main line of defense by the lawyer for Myriad was that most patients did not pay the $3,500 fee for the cancer screening test, their health insurance companies paid most of the cost. When Steven Brill wrote about how non-profit hospitals used a "chargemaster" program to overprice the cost of being a hospital patient, hospital executives receiving 7 figure salaries defended the "chargemaster," saying the costs were almost always negotiated down, that patients did not pay the costs in most cases, insurance companies footed the bill. When MF Global stole $1.6 billion from the sequestered commodity trading accounts of 33,000 clients, the initial reaction from the Commodity Futures Trading Corp., the regulator, was that the money had "vaporized." Why shouldn't people at the bottom of the economic ladder think they deserve entitlements when the top 1% dodge most taxes, get away with thievery and, when caught, never go to jail unless they are someone like Martha Stewart, an outsider whose forebears did not come over on the Mayflower.
The fish stinks from the head. If someone looked, you would find out that most US Senators are like Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose family made $250 million from the Iraqi construction projects she approved as chair of the Senate military construction subcommittee. Senator Charles Schumer probably has a stock portfolio worth $50 million, which he will claim he made by good investments. They are all thieves and liars who have allowed this country to be looted by the trillions. And, like Bill Clinton, who as Arkansas governor took payoffs in public before approving state contracts, all these crooked politicians are immune from prosecution and press coverage. Unlike the person claiming a chump change SSI disabilty payment under questionable circumstances. The lamestream press goes after nobodies with a vengeance.
Not too impressed by Ludwig von Mises. His philosophy is basically in the same arrogant and disingenuous vein as Freud and Jung, and his economic theories never really addressed the problem of criminal oligarchs who would capitalize upon it to create a neo Feudalism.
Leave it to ZH to flush out one of the most famous missing person's of all time.
Freedom costs a buck-o-five...
It is about securing the vote for the next elections. In the meanwhile, work a bit more -you slaves- so the rest can get some more 'free' benefits.
Social Security isn't the only government tit you know, corporations get huge contracts to basically do no work all the time. How many BILLIONS were paid to contractors "working" in iraq to "rebuild" when the contract stipulated if it was too dangerous to work they could leave and still get paid? If I recall a contractor got hundreds of millions to paint the buildings but never did. I think its called "blood money" http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0316166286
The bullshit is at every level poor and rich alike! Don't just pick on the lazy who don't work and take 20k or less a year when there are people doing the same for MILLIONS and BILLIONS!
How about the mutual fund industry. Those assholes never beat the S&P 500 but you can't invest in anything else if your a govt worker. I see my mothers investment options. Someone a vanguard blew everyone at the statehouse for that royal fucking...Should be index funds and govt bonds, cash and gold and silver as investment options only.
Wow I'm glad there are so many decently paying jobs available out there right now. Someone please tell the thousands of chumps at the job fairs where they are. Apparently the author thinks that while they are fit and motivated to turn up at a job fair suited up with copies of their CVs, all they really want to do at heart is collect disability.
This article is a load of BS.
Oh here is another idea - how about making sure the minimum wage is high enough to live on and be worth getting out of bed for. Radical I know.
'If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits'
That says more about the level of wages for these jobs than the level of benefits.
Funny how these enemies of 'entitlement' culture never look at what the wealthy entitle themselves to, such as the freedom to buy houses and then sell them back on the market at a vast profit, a practice otherwise known as profiteering.
This article is big BS. It claims there is a choice not to work. That is totally wrong and puts the blame on the underemployed. But take away welfare and then OBSERVE what will happpen...Still feeling safe in your gated community?
Bravo to that FJ! Middle class America was fired, the factories bull dized, and their jobs shipped off to China and Mexico. Only idiots start quoting Glenn Beck without looking around at the tent cities.
The incentive has been to move towards cheaper employees/wages. More illegals temps from overseas.
The US politicians do this through more deficits/debt.
Eventually the US dollar blows up and tanks once reality sets in.
The US with an unmotivated, non-inovative society drops down. Rinse and repeat.
Obama is a chip off the 'ole block
But should he be crowned a king though?
I eagerly await the day when the gravy ceases to flow. Blood in the streets shall flow instead.
I would rather see a mass orderly systematic execution of the PC tards.
Sorry Tyler, I never thought ZH would get so far off course. The title of the problem is "The real cost of 'free markets'" So, shipping jobs off to China and Singapore and Mexico, by the tens of millions, wasn't such a good idea, eh? The entitlement "problem" is an effect, not the cause. Back to the drawing board with you, Tyler.
You seem to off course... HuffPost is that <=that way.
In Sweden a family of six can get just north of $5000 a month in welfare (barnbidrag (state child support), bostadsbidrag (housing subsidy) & socialbidrag (plain welfare)), with roughly 70% of that (all but the child support) being in danger if any member of the household has any type of income. Where is the incentive to work? Who would shoot the goose that lays golden eggs, specially if your rifle is a minimum wage job?
What standard of living does $60,000 per annum give a family?
I ask this so as to gauge whether the $60,000 is truly generous or whether the cost of living is so high that $60k is just ordinary.
Good to see that socialism is having its problems as well.
$60k before or after tax? Either way good luck being middle age with a couple of kids (and don't forget elderly parents that become financial burdens) because $60k ain't what it used to be and if you live on either coast with that amount you are below the poverty level. If you can't make more than middle 6 figures don't bother having a family with dreams of yore. Even if the government tells you there is minimal inflation for the last decade anyone living in the real world is living in the world of hyperinflation when it comes to the items needed to live on but conveniently left out of inflation calculations.
Collect disability/welfare and work under the table. Best of both worlds.
If you are not doing your part to help crash the economy, you are not trying.
The Free Shiite Army is causing problems for America.
Edit: Undo! Last thing I need is a Jihadist without a sense of humour tracking me down.
No one wants to live in poverty. I'm not saying it's right but if there is help available vs. living on the streets and starving then duh.
Pulling the chain isn't the answer. Neither was turning the US into a part time jobs only state wasn't either. For the most part I blame this mostly on the gov't and stupid politicians.
The article is all well and good but let us not forget and underestimate the level of corporate welfare doled out to corporations and let us not forget that the rate of remuneration and benefits for public servants has outstripped the growth of remuneration and benefits in the private sector.
If you add politicians at all levels, public servants, members of the armed forces to the entitlement class, that should give us all a clearer picture what the remaining real workers and contributors of the USA are really shouldering.
So many companies pay 0 taxes.
re: "The Balance Sheet on Government Giveaways"
Where's the rundown on bankster/corporate/MIC government(aka taxpayer funded) bailouts/subsidies/giveaways?
"So why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? "
WHAT A FUCKING LOAD OF IDEOLOGICAL DRIVEN BOLLOCKS!
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/
Entitlements are called entitlements cause
they're paid for, and when taken, it's analogous
to the self-important but failed corporate
management in denial about that taking their
employees' pensions.
People's elderly parents have had their
retirements ripped off as their retirement
securities' earning power's been ripped off in
favor of free reserves aimed at enabling banks
to avoid taking losses on their self-created
mortgage bubble.
All those who saw the bubble as it was inflating
sold it, notwithstanding being called nuts by
the peer pressuring bubble chasing crowd.
Those who did sell, their dollar volume in selling
matching the buying, have suffered the policy
of "hand it over."
They even finance this against their own interest.
http://ochousingnews.com/news/menendez-boxer-plan-bill-to-transfer-bank-losses-to-us-taxpayer
and the same thing every day another way,
with of course $trillions self-entitled by those who
don't want people to know this:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_james_py_060422_warped_interpretatio.htm
Ayn Rand:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ayn+rand+railed+but+grabbed
Perfectly equal info/ease of entry implies S/D
always meeting at -0-, or no profit ever, except
intensely fleetingly (esoteric level virtually,) a
mathematical obsurdity insofar as economic life
is concerned. Techdirt’s notably attempted
addressing persistent excess supply.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070125/004949/step-one-to-embracing-lack-scarcity-recognize-what-market-youre-really.shtml
Let’s just say the days of unfair profiteering are numbered.
The opposite is monopoly.
Actually, monopoly, gatekeeping and risk filtering
best describe our large economic sectors.
You have to add pay to play. It's a payback
arrangement, with billionaires in the past having
bragged about how little it takes for people
to bite.
I don't think it's worth jumping off the terrace
over, but rather think it enjoyable letting
markets provide efficiency and discipline while
the people they serve are assured a fair deal and
lack of want, particularly where want is
humanely unacceptable. I call it "market progressive,"
market "sector process informed," "economic
melting pot."
In health care particularly economics has to share
what's happening with the realities of our
environmental, social and (unfair) economic
stressors, as well as basic biologic and epidemiologic
reality. Plus, the manner of how medical care is
rendered is not automatically suited in every
aspect to simple supply and demand dynamics.
Germs, accidents, and an infinity of impactors
have a persistent disinterest in price motivation.
Stressors often involve someone's benefit at
someone else's cost, but that's what monopoly,
gatekeeping, risk filtering and pay to play
are all about. Of course, they bear no relation
to democracy, and they're not capitalist.
The name calling is indistinguishable from what
the kids engage in, though they probably get
it from their parents.
This area's interesting in health care cause
ObamaCare's obviously been carefully crafted
along the lines that the Simpson Bowles Commisson
would have liked--to avoid entitlement status.
I welcome more coverage,
(health care, not talking about this:
http://momgrind.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Cleavage-4.JPG )
along with every other
purist/reformer, many of whom would think I should
be glad taking what we can get.
It used to be you couldn't move from San Diego to
Vegas for a job/r.e. op lest you suffer an exclusion,
often. Also, having risk factors used to mean for
many the eventual choice of "go naked" or "premium
death spiral."
Unfortunately, ObamaCare's coverage is not as
comprehensive as advertised, and the very orientation
of the "exchanges" (now they prefer: "marketplaces")
reflects all how the sector could be better reformed.
The Difference Between
A System With High Risk Here,
But Not There, Vs. One With
Sector-Wide Risk Equalization,
Is Like The Difference Between
Homogenized Whole Milk
And Ice Cream.
They're Two Entirely
Different Products.
If One Considers Medicare Was
Originally Conceived As National
Health Insurance For Unwanted
Customers (I Do,) Just As Amtrak
Was Born When The RR's No
Longer Wished To Compete With
A Burgeoning Interstate Highway
System And An Airline Industry
In The Midst Of Its Original Massive
Growth Phase, Then, BECAUSE
LIGIBILITY FOR SUBSIDY IS PARTLY
DEFINED BY NEED THAT'S
PARTLY DEFINED BY HIGHER RISK,
The "Exchanges," (Now
"Marketplaces,") Because They're
Most Essentially For High Risk
Customers, Is A Quasi-Partial Single
Payer (The Taxpayer) For Less
Wanted Customers System.
Risk Should Be Spread Across
The Population, The Market
Should Address That, And
Processes Can Then Be Instituted
To Assure Patient And Health
Provider Satisfaction, With
Legitimately Universal Coverage.
To The Person Who's Still
Not 100% Pleased With Total
Universal Coverage, Remember
Again All Unpaid Cost Is Shifted.
Much would-be shifted uncovered
unpaid cost is now captured in that
Quasi-Partial Single
Payer (The Taxpayer) For Less
Wanted Customers System. Taking
customers back that way is a modified
form of collaborative care (in Medicare,)
so when carriers decline the business
it becomes comparable to the banks
declining biting for this in the face
of a liquidity trap--the insiders have left
too much risk on the outside.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-09/dealers-decline-bernanke-twist-bids.html
The cost of gatekeeping is so high, in
so many more ways than can be practically
listed here, that reverse engineering from
patient and health care provider satisfaction
in a market progressive way, with universal
coverage and minimal tiering is obviously
eminently doable.
Here’s an example as to much.
A woman under 65 on Medicare (yes--Disability)
thrives on physical therapy, but only stays alive
and loses her physical therapy gains on neurologic
meds. But until her physical therapy allowance
resets, she has to returns to the meds, even though
the neurologist herself would prefer the patient being
on physical therapy. (A true story.)
------------------------------------------------------
(Adding (ZH's sub-heading will have to change
to: on a long enough timeline ENEN
will stop editing:)) as to techdirt/others
on ample supply (above.)
As it’s been almost a day since the subject
column appeared, the following should
appropriately match the curiosity of those
very few actually following me here.
This
http://pages.citebite.com/r1h6b0n7u3bui
explains how enabling others does not detract
from those already prosperous (democracy
and opportunity don’t have to be denied others
for one to retain their prosperity.)
I’ve drawn parallels elsewhere (my site--won’t spam)
as to
1: civilly paying for higher premiums for when
police deny rights wrongfully and
2: paying for
such things as gatekeepers so that risk can be
clumped for government with eligibility for subsidy
largely driven by that (so where Medicare was in its
origin national health insurance for unwanted
customers, the (most essentially high risk-) exchanges
(now “marketplaces”) are a zone for quasi-single “payer”
support for less wanted customers, the opposite of all
that being risk equalization and combining that with
a process-informed market (“market progressive”/
market “sector-process-informed”/ economic
melting pot. Improving coverage even by way of risk
filter is better than nothing, but that’s still
carrier-centric, not patient and health provider
centric.
In short I quantify paying more to get
less for the advantage of a few, and that’s graphable
along time. I think it’s a picture of slavery.
It’s where paying for one’s own control is less
obvious that hopefully makes the idea more
interesting.
The mathematical opposite is enriching oneself by
enabling others, though admittedly that wouldn’t
apply to the spectacularly rich control freak
buying puppets.
Check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
This subject was studied thoroughly at great expense to tax payers. Check the names involved in it. This outcome was intended, to weaken the nation for UN/FR NWO takeover.
The demand for a free product is infinite.