Rich kids don't feel compelled to enlist just to make financial ends meet. Even I (single parent household, parent was a teacher), when faced with an inability to find a job when out of high school, had the grades and support to 'fall back' onto college instead. I wasn't forced to risk my life just to stay solvent.

More on point, though, I think a lot of people with this view conflate the particular implementation of welfare (itself a cause of compromise between right and left wing), with the nature of welfare itself. That is, because there is such a wide gap between "welfare, not working", and "fully self supported" that unless you can land in a job that pays well it doesn't make sense from a total utility perspective for many to find a low wage job and work that in lieu of (or alongside partial) welfare, we dismiss the idea of welfare completely. Or by example, the person on disability who is unable to work full time, but who, if they try to work above X amount of hours, ends up -losing- money, due to loss of disability benefits, as well as (obviously) losing on free time, and so ends up not working as much as they could. Due to cases like that, many people end up blaming welfare itself, rather than a flawed implementation of it.

Per another commenter, I too think a UBI would address this (as well as the basic issue that with more automation we have less need of people working, and I'd prefer someone trying to figure out what useful work they could do that would result in them getting paid for the real utility they provide, rather than just taking an unnecessary job just to make ends meet. Wage slavery in jobs that could be automated is an even more flawed form of welfare than government handouts).

Not borne out by the statistics. The average recruit comes from a family that's better educated and wealthier than the average American. The real problem with poor people using the military to lift themselves out of poverty is so many of them can't enlist as a consequence of obesity or a criminal record.

Statistics only tell you the demographics of enlisting, not -why- they're enlisting. Plenty of people enlist because of reasons other than "I have no other options available to me". My point was that "I have no other options available to me" is only ever true for poor people.

And my point was if you have no other options the military probably won't take you either.

> was too proud

> the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help

> the most respectable ways

you are placing your own morality on other peoples' choices with definitive and hostile rhetoric

you speak of pride, respect, and hurt, but have you examined these ideas for yourself?

perhaps someone on welfare is more proud that they stayed out of the military, an entity often acting as a machine of violence used to enable politicians' often dubious goals

perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is more respectable to accept aide from others than support military effort

perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is less hurtful to accept aide from others than to accept work supporting goals that often lead to direct hurt being inflicted on others

so, by your own criteria those accepting welfare are in the right as well because they are: too proud to join the military, think it is more respectable to stay out of the military, and think the military causes hurt more than welfare

i think it's dangerous to question a person's character lest you be prepared to have your own questioned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...

Two of the strongest arguments for UBI are: 1) we waste a lot of money administering welfare services. UBI is designed to be inexpensive to administer, which directs more money to the poor. 2) research is beginning to suggest that direct cash transfers have better long term impact per dollar spent than just about any other intervention. see, e.g. research on GiveDirectly's impact

I find it hard to believe we waste more money administering welfare than we will transfer to those who really don't need it under the need-blind UBI.

Under UBI we'll be giving money to many, many people who need it less than the current welfare recipients, and even UBI will require administration.

A solution (UBI) that claims to help a group (the actual needy) that is not tailored to administer to that group is unlikely to benefit them, especially since it's now going to split the fixed amount of benefits to others not in the group.

>see, e.g. research on GiveDirectly's impact

What works in Kenya does not necessarily work at every location and economy. It's not like we have not studied this question in the US for nearly a century, and recent research on foreign third world cases does not overturn a century of research on first world economic aid.

And this is not an argument for UBI. At best it would be an argument to change current welfare programs to give cash aid to those already eligible for welfare.

http://econweb.tamu.edu/common/files/workshops/PERC%20Applie...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387813...

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/cfg...

Articles related to the studies:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-...

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... (direct cash vs CCTs)

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3049642/solving-inequality/how-to...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/wel...

"If I were an enterprising young researcher looking for an idea and experiments that will prove powerful in five years, I would try to find the stake I can drive into the heart of the cash transfer movement."

He states that giving cash is useful if the person is enterprising, such as trying to start a business, and direct cash is what is holding them back. I doubt this is most poor people, especially in the US. Otherwise, cash is not as useful as other poverty alleviation methods.

[1] http://chrisblattman.com/2013/06/27/why-cash-transfers-to-th...

Excerpts from the setup:

Groups had to submit a written proposal stating how they would use the grant for non-agricultural skills training and enterprise start-up costs. [...] The central government asked district governments to nominate 2.5 times the number of groups they could fund. [...] Successful proposals [note: randomized] received a large lump sum cash transfer [...] with no government monitoring thereafter.

Excerpts from the conclusions:

These results show that cash grants to groups of young people who develop business plans have large and persistent impacts in moving underemployed into non-agricultural jobs, increasing earnings and work hours. [...] In the end, YOP appears to have reached a group of motivated, able young people, who on average were neither exceptionally poor nor uneducated relative to their peers, in an economy with little financial depth but bouncing back from civil strife. Our conceptual framework suggests this is exactly the group to benefit from a windfall.

Yes, but what about the working/low-middle class who currently mostly doesn't pay for nor receive welfare? That's money that could be allocated for the actual poor.

People keep repeating this. Go ahead and give us the actual numbers involved in your claims to back it up, since it fails even the most basic of smell tests.

I'd need to see numbers again, but it's raw numbers we should use to decide how to run an economy, not rhetoric about "helping the poor how?"

DARPA

$3 Billion / year of taxpayer funds invested in the tech industry. Plus, lots of other government agencies and procurement involved in nurturing tech.

I mean literally Siri was invented by DARPA.[1] And you can thank it for your next autonomous car.[2] Also a thing called the Internet.

So tell us again how investing in people is a corrupting influence but investing in tech companies is critical early-stage support?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

You ask xacaxulu to "tell us again" something they never said in the first place.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/ca...

I believe that people take for granted situations that are not... Granted. A a 5-year old who lives in Bronx and his mother sells drugs for a living, doesn't have a choice. By the time he is 15, his future is already seriously broken 99 out of 100 times. Of course there are exceptions, but it's like startups... For every team that succeeds there are 1.000 smart, interesting, extremely hard-working team that fails for a huge variety of reasons.

IMHO having a parent that will teach you how to face problems, life, etc. is more valuable than money per-se.

You had your mother who was too proud, so she fought. Now you seem to have the same stance towards difficulties. Other children do not have mother like yours.

Maybe we owe more to the society than we like to reckon[1].

[1] http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/cla...

What do you think about people who don't qualify to join the military? What should they do? The military is a life saver for a lot of people, but not everyone can do it.

Paul Krugman histories the development of an entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-business organizations (who supported right-wing ideas because they reduce taxes and empower employers vis-a-vis employees and especially unions) in his book

"The Conscience of a Liberal":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393333132?keywords=conscie...

This network of organizations, which took decades to build, does indeed compose a "vast right-wing conspiracy" in the sense that they coordinate with and cross-reference each other to deliver right-wing political views and to promote the hiring of lobbyists and aides in Washington, D.C. who share their political views. Luckily, according to Krugman, their persuasive power is diminishing with time.

My take-away: don't equate one of these right-wing "think tanks" with a real think-tank, e.g., RAND corporation.

Unfortunately, taking care of the less fortunate gets rolled into these arguments, only sometimes on purpose. It's rather difficult to individually consider the human benefit to welfare programs when congressmen/women with ties to defense-industry districts can just as easily make an argument for the jobs and wages paid to the working class because of those programs.

I think this is why (very much conjecture-ing here) there seems to be a groundswell of support for the idea of guaranteed income. If you can solve some of the individual woes people have collectively by giving everyone a basic income, it's easier to argue for and against government spending for individual programs, because far fewer will be able to have such a socially destructive effect if they are cancelled.

Just a thought.

Why do we cut the amount of welfare people get as their income increases? Well, there's the obvious reason, that their income should supplant welfare. Is that what happens? No. Their income ends up paying less than welfare, until they earn sufficiently high amounts.

Why is that? Because the system is broken. As a cynic, I would even say that the pressure to cut it off earlier, rather than later, largely stems from conservative pressures ("if they're able to work that minimum wage job for 30 hours, then they certainly should be able to work 40! Stop their governmental handout at 30 hours!" "Okay, then we'll just work 20" "If they can work 20, they can work 30! Stop their governmental handout at 20 hours!" Etc). That is, this broken system that they're speaking out against is -exactly the broken one they caused-.

What would actually make sense? Well, tailoring off welfare payments at some percentage of earned income. Let's say 50%.

That is, someone on welfare earns $50 one month from a job, their welfare payout reduces by $25. Take into account additional costs as deductibles; things like "Driving to the job took an extra $10 from me" - okay, fine, then your welfare payout is reduced only $15. The tax payer has saved $15 (as only $35 was paid to the welfare recipient), the welfare recipient came out ahead by $25 ($50 earned + ($25 welfare + $10 gas refund/deductible) - $10 gas cost; they walk away with $75, $50 of which they earned), -and- they're working toward rejoining the workforce. Welfare effectively stops once they've reached wages of 2x welfare + cost of incidentals, and until they reach that point, every extra dollar they earn is a net gain to them; there is no valley where their purchasing power actually drops because they chose to work.

While we're at it, if we're really concerned about people working, let's also fund more job training centers, more disability rehab and job placement centers, etc.

Why don't we do all of that? Because there is no political pressure to do that; conservatives would rather completely dismantle welfare, and liberals either aren't that concerned by the status quo, or are tired of trying to work with conservatives over the issue (and so it's become a shouting match where both parties have drawn lines in the sand and refused to compromise).

Also, of all people, you picked Krugman to form your opinion about "vast right-wing conspiracy"? Really?

Thank you for that grammar tip: I was indeed incorrect to use quotes there. I'm still learning!

So, these 'evil networks' of small-business owners want less taxes to grow their business by making more money and employing more people?

I can't see how an employed and wealthy population could be a bad thing.

Lower taxes and higher owner incomes aren't 1:1 equatable to job creation or greater collective wealth.

Data: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/20...

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2014/wp14114.pdf

"I can't see how an employed and wealthy population could be a bad thing."

It isn't. But what we're facing is a _small_ employed and extremely wealthy fraction of the population together with a _huge_ low-paid supermajority of the population.

Small business owners want fewer and less taxes, no unions, lower wages, lower healthcare costs, fewer worker protections, etc. Left to themselves they would drive wages to zero. Small businesses join others to support certain non-profits that lobby in Washington, DC on their behalf. Nothing illegal, but one must ask such questions as: "Where are the lobbyists for low-paid workers?" or "Who will support the workers' families after the workers die from inhaling toxic substances day after day?" These are questions in which the small businessman's lobbyist has no interest.

In one chapter "Conscience of a Liberal" Krugman histories the development of this relatively new conservative and wealthy network of individuals and not-for-profit corporations. Read/skim the book for details:

http://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Liberal-Paul-Krugman/dp/039...

One of Krugman's points is that the middle class is disappearing in the USA: wealth distribution now mirrors that which existed in the so-called "Gilded Age" of the Rockefellers, Carnegie et al (late 19th-early 20th century): a small percentage of extremely rich people and a large percentage of poor, with a very small middle class.

FDR's New Deal, by increasing taxes radically on the wealthy (both inheritance and income taxes) and increasing wages, brought a strong middle-class into existence. That middle class has been the engine of the US economy but is dwindling. The solution is to restore taxes and support the worker's causes.

Gilded Age:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age

"Why We’re in a New Gilded Age" by Paul Krugman:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-...

The Rich, the Right, and the Facts: Deconstructing the Income Distribution

http://prospect.org/article/rich-right-and-facts-deconstruct...

Note: Unlike other places, teaching is a great job in Ontario.