Is the USA uncivilised?

[laklak]

That's basically mrjonno's philosophy, BG. He figures we need to pay them to keep them from boiling out of the slums and murdering their betters. Maybe there's some efficacy in that approach, as long as we don't have the bottle for work camps. Personally I'd let them starve; lucky for them kinder, gentler hands helm the ship of State.

[Seth]

To Audley and Seth

The thing you are forgetting is that there have been, globally, literally hundreds of government schemes set up to get beneficiaries into work. All those schemes have a degree of success, but not one of them ever had 100% success.

Indeed. In fact almost all of them have been utter, abject failures, and therein lies the point.

There are always going to be a small number of people who cannot be forced, cajoled, persuaded, or otherwise driven into being good little workers.

Hunger is the best sauce.

If those people are handed a job on a platter, they will be tossed out of that job rather quickly when it is found by the employer that they literally cannot do the work scheduled.

No workee, no eatee.

This is not simply my opinion. This is an empirical result from numerous trials. In other words, no matter what your mind conjures up, it does not change the reality.

Depends on which particular reality you are talking about. Granted, there are people who just won't work because they don't want to or they prefer an alternative lifestyle...like living in a box under a bridge drinking Thunderbird. They have an unassailable right to live in that or any other peaceable, non-criminal manner that they choose. What they have absolutely no right to demand, or even expect, is that anybody else is going to pay them to enjoy that lifestyle. And the truth is that there is a cadre of hard-core homeless people who have absolutely no interest whatever in abiding by the conventions of society beyond the minimum required to keep from getting arrested, and they likewise eschew the responsibilities that adhere to participation in society because they like it that way. And I have no interest in interfering with their preferred lifestyle so long as they aren't stealing my stuff, robbing me, shitting on my lawn or camping out on my land. But I'll be damned if I'm going to pay them to do so.

So what do you do?

I let them live their lives as they see fit, but without my financial assistance, because I respect their right to be free...even if it means starving to death or freezing to death in a box under a bridge. It's their choice and there are numerous charitable organizations that will serve and assist them using money voluntarily given to them by people who wish to do so, and if they choose not to take advantage of those charitable programs that too is their right and their choice, which I completely respect. They can even politely ask me to donate to their lifestyle so long as they just as politely take "no" for an answer if that's what I choose to say.

But when anybody comes at me wielding force to coerce or force me to pay for their lifestyle choices I resist, and I don't care who they use as a proxy in that attempt at a shakedown.

I am happy to support schemes to increase job availability, but we have to realise that not all people are going to hold down a job. For those people the options are to toss them onto the street, and have them turn criminal (which will cost the taxpayer about 400% of the welfare cost each year to keep them in prison), or to provide welfare.

Of those two choices, which are NOT the only ones, I choose to put them in prison. I'd rather pay more to put them away in order to create an atmosphere of fear among other like lazy fucking criminals that they will get butt-fucked in a prison cell for the next 5 or 10 years and then die of some horrible disease than appease them by capitulating to their extortionate demands, which does nothing but encourage others of their ilk to do the same thing, which makes the problem worse, not better.

When you appease criminals, tyrants or terrorists, you only get more crime, tyranny and terrorism.

And if throwing them in prison doesn't change their behavior, then the next step is to remove them from society permanently.

[Audley Strange]

To Audley and Seth

The thing you are forgetting is that there have been, globally, literally hundreds of government schemes set up to get beneficiaries into work. All those schemes have a degree of success, but not one of them ever had 100% success.

There are always going to be a small number of people who cannot be forced, cajoled, persuaded, or otherwise driven into being good little workers. If those people are handed a job on a platter, they will be tossed out of that job rather quickly when it is found by the employer that they literally cannot do the work scheduled.

I know they don't always work but your option is do nothing but encourage them to hold us to ransom. Wer'e not talking about the ill now are we, We're talking about the indolent and the criminal. You say it is more ethical and cost efficient to just give them the money rather than have them causing trouble. I'm asking you if that is your view why not just eliminate them? Quick efficient cost effective and frankly more ethical than being a perpetually afraid victim of extortion. If the number is now a small number then why would we worry about them rising up? If you had a foreign threat outside demanding payment or war do you allow them to bleed you dry or fight? Why should we tolerate such from within?

Again I don't think unemployment is a single problem with a single solution. There are many factors that have to be dealt with but your rationale is the same as those who don't want to give them money. They're weak, lazy mentally ill and criminal extorting us so we can live in relative peace from them. Are you sure that's what you're trying to say?

This is not simply my opinion. This is an empirical result from numerous trials. In other words, no matter what your mind conjures up, it does not change the reality.

No, it's simply your opinion that you assumed based on you stating you've seen empirical results from some trials. That not one has 100% success means only that the trial was not 100% successful, it does not mean that a person who had no success on that trial might not have success if something else is attempted. I've hazard a guess that you don't know how successful global schemes to curb unemployment have been. Now I am not saying that there is a magic solution, I'm saying your reasoning for just giving them the money is problematic.

So what do you do? I am happy to support schemes to increase job availability, but we have to realise that not all people are going to hold down a job. For those people the options are to toss them onto the street, and have them turn criminal (which will cost the taxpayer about 400% of the welfare cost each year to keep them in prison), or to provide welfare.

Or execute them. You've yet to explain how why they deserve welfare or any sort of support from the state, only that if we don't they'll lash out, hence why not just kill them?

I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed, I'm just suggesting there is a more efficient solution for the problem you suggest.

[Hermit]

I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed, I'm just suggesting there is a more efficient solution for the problem you suggest.

Which is?

[rainbow]

I favour eating the unemployed.

[Blind groper]

The people who simply cannot hold down a job are not necessarily being like that out of spite. A lot of them have social or mental problems that prevent them being "good little workers". The idea of locking them up or executing them is simply barbaric, and definitely unethical in the extreme. Not helping them is not practical, since a starving person will always turn to crime.

It may also be worth noting that more and more people will enter that state as time goes by, and robotics and computers and mechanisation takes over more and more jobs. Socialism and welfare remain as the only option for the people who cannot get employment.

However, wealth generation and taxes will continue and increase. As robotics etc increase productivity, so does wealth increase, and so does taxable income increase. This makes more money available for welfare. It would not surprise me if, in 100 years, over 90% of the people in western nations were on welfare, and robots did pretty much all the work. If that ends up the case, what is wrong with that?

[Audley Strange]

I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed, I'm just suggesting there is a more efficient solution for the problem you suggest.

Which is?

I don't consider the view that the unemployed are a threat or that society does or should pay for them in order to pacify them realistic hence I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed.

However If one believes in Blind Groper's consideration of the unemployed a threat to society which extorts money "or else" I think it reasonable to conclude that it would be more practical, efficient economically beneficial and yes ethical to kill them rather than to allow them to threaten you and extort money in perpetuity as they proliferate at your expense. We wouldn't tolerate it from another state or terrorist cells or organised crime, why should we tolerate it from any other group?

[Svartalf]

I favour eating the unemployed.

Is that a modest proposal?

[Clinton Huxley]

Used to be we could just send them to Australia or round them up to man a ship o' the line. Happy times.

[Clinton Huxley]

Besides, as our illustrious Chancellor has opined, the UK and the EU cannot afford their lavish welfare payments if we are to compete with India and China. No more council houses made of gold and free Monster Munch, you scandalous layabouts. It's a helter-skelter race to the bottom.

[Hermit]

I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed, I'm just suggesting there is a more efficient solution for the problem you suggest.

Which is?

I don't consider the view that the unemployed are a threat or that society does or should pay for them in order to pacify them realistic hence I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed.

However If one believes in Blind Groper's consideration of the unemployed a threat to society which extorts money "or else" I think it reasonable to conclude that it would be more practical, efficient economically beneficial and yes ethical to kill them rather than to allow them to threaten you and extort money in perpetuity as they proliferate at your expense. We wouldn't tolerate it from another state or terrorist cells or organised crime, why should we tolerate it from any other group?

So a more efficient solution to the problem is what exactly?

[piscator]

I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed, I'm just suggesting there is a more efficient solution for the problem you suggest.

Which is?

I don't consider the view that the unemployed are a threat or that society does or should pay for them in order to pacify them realistic hence I don't believe we should be killing the unemployed.

However If one believes in Blind Groper's consideration of the unemployed a threat to society which extorts money "or else" I think it reasonable to conclude that it would be more practical, efficient economically beneficial and yes ethical to kill them rather than to allow them to threaten you and extort money in perpetuity as they proliferate at your expense. We wouldn't tolerate it from another state or terrorist cells or organised crime, why should we tolerate it from any other group?

So a more efficient solution to the problem is what exactly?

[Seth]

The people who simply cannot hold down a job are not necessarily being like that out of spite. A lot of them have social or mental problems that prevent them being "good little workers". The idea of locking them up or executing them is simply barbaric, and definitely unethical in the extreme. Not helping them is not practical, since a starving person will always turn to crime.

Generally, hungry people don't turn to crime, they go to work. If they are unable to be "good little workers" then they take day-labor temp jobs that let them make some money for whatever period of time they are able to work...unless some simpering liberal twat insists on simply giving them money to facilitate their indolent "disability."

It may also be worth noting that more and more people will enter that state as time goes by, and robotics and computers and mechanisation takes over more and more jobs. Socialism and welfare remain as the only option for the people who cannot get employment.

Once again, we are not discussing those who "cannot" get employment, we are discussing those who will not get employment. If you think that I'm going to accept the ridiculous notion that the vast majority of physically-able welfare leeches who prefer to get a government check to reporting to work every day are so psychologically damaged that they "cannot" hold down a job and that it qualifies as a medical disability you're wrong. Even mentally retarded people, people with Down Syndrome, blind people, fat people, anorexic people, schizophrenic people, bi-polar people and zillions of others find themselves capable of doing productive work and at least contributing to their own maintenance. All that is required is the proper motivation and perhaps some training and support to make them largely self-sufficient.

I'm quite sure that ghetto crack dealers and gang-bangers are perfectly capable of holding down paying jobs. After all, they are running criminal enterprises on our dime, so your pathetic excuse is just so much bilge.

However, wealth generation and taxes will continue and increase. As robotics etc increase productivity, so does wealth increase, and so does taxable income increase. This makes more money available for welfare. It would not surprise me if, in 100 years, over 90% of the people in western nations were on welfare, and robots did pretty much all the work. If that ends up the case, what is wrong with that?

Who the fuck is going to pay for 90 percent of people to be on "welfare?" Are you really this dense? What do you think "welfare" is anyway? Do you think it falls from the sky, gifted by God as manna to the unwashed masses? Jesus Christ BG, get a fucking clue will you? Every dime that is given to someone on welfare has to be extracted from someone else who has labored to produce that wealth. If you think 10 percent of the population is going to stand for having every bit of their labor seized to pay welfare to the other 90 percent you've lost your fucking mind.

Let's say that I'm an extremely talented and therefore wealthy businessperson who builds these hypothetical robots. In order for your idiotic social model to work, I not only have to pay to build robots, I have to turn over literally every dime I might make to the government to be distributed as welfare to the 90 percent of people who you think ought to get it. And who the fuck is going to have any money to buy my robots anyway?

Why on God's green earth would I continue to make robots? Why would I continue to do anything at all? Why wouldn't I just quit making robots and join the 90 percent of people living on the government dole? Why wouldn't I shut down the factory, take my vast profits and go live on an island somewhere and spend the rest of my life living in luxury on the fruits of my labor without making any income that can be taxed?

What the hell are you thinking? Who, exactly, is going to labor on behalf of the 90 percent of unemployed people to produce the wealth that the government can take away from them to pay the welfare beneficiaries?

Nobody, that's who.

So where exactly is all this wealth that is to be distributed to the unemployed masses going to come from? Do you think it's going to simply appear as the Money Fairy waves her wand?

I don't think I've ever heard a more ignorant, flatly stupid and deranged argument in my life. There's no such thing as a free lunch BG. Somebody has to labor to create the wealth you want to redistribute, and it's simply impossible for the 10 percent to work hard enough to create enough wealth to support the idle 90 percent. It can't happen. It can't happen with even one half of the population laboring full time. It's barely possible with 85 percent of the population working and generating wealth. At 15 percent unemployment the entire world's economy is cracking and is about to collapse.

What the fuck are you thinking? Take a fucking 10th grade class in economics for the love of God, because your arguments are beyond idiocy.

[piscator]

[Blind groper]

Seth

How about not using straw man arguments?

I have said repeatedly that the people who simply will not be able to work are a minority, and that I support programs to provide work for most of those on welfare. However, experience has repeatedly shown that a small group will always be unable to hold down paid employment. When you force them into work, they either become major liabilities holding back productivity, or they get sacked.

On the future when robots do most of the work. You kind of forget that robots working 24/365 will produce one hell of a lot of wealth. Whoever owns those robots are going to be raking it in. They will be heavily taxed, of course. Maybe 40% of all their profits. A portion of that tax money will then go to the 90% who cannot find work. That 40% will not live such lives of such luxury as the robot owners, but there should be plenty of wealth to go around. After all, with robot labour cheap and sophisticated, and working 24/365, it would be no trick to generate at least ten times the productivity of our current economy.