Health and Social Darwinism (Split Topic)

[Reginus]

I like Reaganomics. It seemed mean at the time but it was very good overall.

Might I point out that national debt went from 900 million to 2.8 billion while Reagan was in office?

[karadan]

There is a benefit black hole which swallows billions a year in the UK. We have major issues with fraud, inefficiency and policy malfunctions. There are women who get paid thousands a month to care for several children. They will then be given a huge house for free. Many of these women bring up their children in the knowledge that they will never have to work in order to have a cosy life. All they'll have to do is open their legs to 6 different men and the tax payer will take care of the rest. This problem is real and I simply do not have an answer for it. The fascist in me says neuter them.

 

The humanist in me says educate them. It isn't a good situation but it is simply a byproduct of a system which is there, initially, to help people in need. Of all the people who get deserving and legitimate help from the benefit system, the people who abuse it probably only represent one percent of the total (I don't know that for sure but I'd be surprised if it was much more).

I like Reaganomics. It seemed mean at the time but it was very good overall.

If you'd have read further down, you'd see i wasn't agreeing with you so your thanks isn't really necessary.

I'm not sure what Reaganomics is.

[Reginus]

Reaganomics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

[curiosityandthecat]

Isn't Reagonomics why we have the ENRONs now? Give more to the rich in hopes that it'll trickle down to the workers, but it never did. It's why the middle class is going byebye.

[Reginus]

Um, what do you mean by ENRONs?

[Whitney]

Um, what do you mean by ENRONs?

ENRON was a gigantic corporation which got caught committing accounting fraud after filing for bankruptcy.  Most who owned stock in the company lost a ton of money when the stocks became unexpectedly worthless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron

[Reginus]

What does that have to do with giving money to rich and hoping it trickles down? Did ENRON get money from the government or something?

[Whitney]

What does that have to do with giving money to rich and hoping it trickles down? Did ENRON get money from the government or something?

I honestly don't know...when the ENRON scandal happened I was too busy with college to care to read much about it.

[Recusant]

Did ENRON get money from the government or something?

You bet it did!

Enron in fact was deeply involved with the federal government throughout the 1990s, both through its lobbying efforts and as a recipient of large amounts of corporate welfare.

Enron provides a perfect example of the dangers of corporate subsidies. The company was (and is) one of the biggest beneficiaries of Export-Import Bank subsidies. The Ex-Im bank, a program that Congress continues to fund with your tax dollars, essentially makes risky loans to foreign governments and businesses for projects involving American companies. The Bank, which purports to help developing nations, really acts as a naked subsidy for certain politically-favored American corporations- especially corporations like Enron that lobbied hard and gave huge amounts of cash to both political parties. Its reward was more that $600 million in cash via six different Ex-Im financed projects.

You can find the full essay by Congressman Paul here.

In addition to this "corporate welfare," Enron received huge tax breaks.

 

Enron ripped off taxpayers by playing fast and loose with the tax code, by not paying its fair share of taxes, and by receiving hundreds of millions in tax rebates from the federal government.

Full text of Congressman Sanders' essay can be found here.

Government policies led to an absurd situation:  A huge corporation run by criminals being subsidized by the Federal government.  In my opinion, these policies were a direct legacy of Reaganomics.

[Reginus]

Interesting, but I can't say that I'm the least bit suprised.

[Brizz]

SUBSIDIES ARE UN-AMERICAN AND TOTALLY AGAINST RONALD REAGAN AND MILTON FRIEDMAN.

[Grizzly]

Had to do it.

Kylyssa
The reason rich people breed less (on average) is education. The answer is not killing off the poor and sick but educating them. Education will also eventually cure them of religion as well. Curing them of religion will also limit population growth.

Are you serious? You talk about religion like it's a disease.

Whitney
eh...someone's gotta collect our trash and do other jobs those with more money don't want to do. I doubt there are many people who really are of zero benefit to society. Many of these necessity jobs don't pay that well either forcing many to work two jobs just to make a halfway decent living...it's no wonder some people have to seek long term government support; society puts them in that position by allowing them to be paid crap.

Shit, I've had those " necessity" jobs you talk about, I guess you don't realize that starting pay for most of those jobs is about ten dollars an hour, and  quite frankly, I've never once been on welfare, I've never had health insurance, and I've paid every hospital bill I've had.

Whitney
No one should have to work their ass off seven days a week and still not make enough to afford health insurance.

Why not? It's not like stupid people deserve good paying jobs.I've worked with a fair number of people who need to be taken out back and shot before they breed.

iNow
We in the US are pretty much the only civilized nation which treats health as a privilege for the wealthy instead of a right of our citizens

Healthcare isn't a right, especially when you consider the fact that we have the best healthcare system in the world, it's only the insurance system that blows goats.

Whitney
Could you be less abrasive with your wording?

I think a few of us have already established that we don't think someone is worthless just because they are down on their luck and/or have a less desireable job and that it is not easy (in the USA) to move up from that position since they are barely paid enough to survive.

Pfft. Abrasive isn't a bad thing, especially not when telling the truth.

Down on their luck, do you have any idea how many cases of welfare fraud the government would find if they only took the time too look? The real problem in America is that most people living in the bottom bracket have lost touch with the idea that you do whatever you can to make money. Thyinking you're too good to pave a road is the reason these morons are making seven dollars an hour at walmart instead of $14  working a shovel for eight hours a day.

 And the bottom income bracket is constantly changing in this country as immigrants move in and others move up.This isn't europe, where the so called social classes are very real and very defined, upward mobility is nonexistant, economic growth sucks due to the very same ideals that people are bandying about nowadays.

curiosityandthecat
Isn't Reagonomics why we have the ENRONs now? Give more to the rich in hopes that it'll trickle down to the workers, but it never did. It's why the middle class is going byebye.

No. And Yeah, giving more to the rich is such a bad idea, especially when your idea of rich is anyone who makes more than 200 grand a year. Nevermind that they employ 70 pecent of the employed population, and when you cut taxes on them the government(this is a proven fact now) actually collects more in tax revenue.

[-43-]

The benefit system is that which creates castes, it classifies a citizen as a certain bracket and treats them as such.  As for the "it's already subsidized" argument, how much did it annoy you when Bush said that "one mustn't change horses in the middle of a stream" (imagine that in the faux-texan accent for a laugh), having something already done doesn't mean it shouldn't be undone.

[Kylyssa]

Had to do it.

Kylyssa
The reason rich people breed less (on average) is education. The answer is not killing off the poor and sick but educating them. Education will also eventually cure them of religion as well. Curing them of religion will also limit population growth.

Are you serious? You talk about religion like it's a disease.

Most objections to population limiting factors (not having a dozen kids for instance) are religious.  Religion is a balm that suffering people reach for when they feel there is no real world solution to their misery.  Religion is a factor of divisiveness more insidious than skin color or culture.  Bigotry against women, homosexuals, people of other skin colors and cultures, and differing lifestyles often has its genesis in religion.

The practice of religion halts the shift to more humane social paradigms by continuing to support and nurture artificial divisions between people through control and misinformation.

Religion is a symptom of ignorance - not stupidity, ignorance.  Suffering seems to cause people to seek it out.  Uneducated people are more likely to be criminals, alcoholics, drug addicts, and religious.  In countries where the level of education and prosperity have risen all of these symptoms tend to shrink.  There are less criminals, alcoholics, drug addicts, and religious people once the general happiness of the population is increased and the level of suffering is decreased.  It just happens naturally.

So I suppose I don't see religion as a disease but as a symptom of a disease much like the aches and pains of flu are not the illness, they are merely a symptom.

I do not suggest we take away people's religion, I merely suggest we remedy their suffering and watch all of its symptoms disappear.

[Reginus]

I found this a couple of years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index

Notice how the US is ranked bellow the Congo, Lebanon, and Iran even though we have much "better" systems of education and healthcare. It seems to me like we might be better off trying to learn from the Central American countries, because apparently they're doing something right.